Jim Keller's Royal Core project: Intel is actively developing Unified Cores to ditch separate P and E-cores in future CPU architectures

We heard back in 2024 that Intel had dismantled Jim Keller’s Royal Core project and won’t release a single CPU architecture that would feature all Royal Core technologies. As such, Intel also seemed to have scrapped Beast Lake and Beast Lake Next CPU architectures which used Royal Core. However, we now have confirmation that Intel could be preparing “Unified Cores”, a crucial Royal Core technology.

Olrak29_ on X recently shared a screenshot of an Intel job posting on LinkedIn that specifically mentioned Intel’s “Unified Core team”. So, Intel seems to be actively working on developing the Unified Core, which was one of the biggest alleged innovations of the Royal Core project.

Intel Unified Core and Rentable Units

A Unified Core, as the name suggests, is a CPU core that can reportedly act both like a big P-core and a smaller E-core based on the task at hand. The concept behind the idea is that, rather than have two different core designs in a CPU, the Unified Core can become a performance-oriented P-core to maximize single-thread performance and morph into an E-core when needed. This feeds directly into the idea of a Rentable Unit, which was also a primary technology of the Royal Core project.

Past leaks have alleged that Intel’s main motivation behind skipping Hyperthreading in Arrow Lake, and Nova Lake CPU architectures was to simplify the core design and set stage for the debut of Rentable Units. According to Moore’s Law Is Dead, Beast Lake was supposed to have 4x threads per Rentable Unit. Meaning, a single Unified Core P-core could spawn four smaller cores to tackle mutli-core workloads. The information was in line with what RedGamingTech revealed about the Unified Core design of the Royal Core project.

So, where does that leave us?

Seeing as to how Intel is actively working on a Unified Core, it is also reasonable to assume that other Royal Core project technlogoes, like Rentable Units and 4-way Hyperthreading, are also being worked on in some form. As such, Intel can debut some of these technologies in upcoming CPU architectures. Nova Lake is set to retain the P, E, and LP E-core design of current architectures like Panther Lake.

What we can expect, however, is that Intel could be gearing up to introduce Royal Core technologies in architectures after Nova Lake. For instance, Intel Razer Lake could bring Unified Cores in 2028.

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