• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Intel Zooms in on "Lakefield" Foveros Package

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,274 (7.69/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
The fingernail-size Intel chip with Foveros technology is a first-of-its kind. With Foveros, processors are built in a totally new way: not with the various IPs spread out flat in two dimensions, but with them stacked in three dimensions. Think of a chip designed as a layer cake (a 1-millimeter-thick layer cake) versus a chip with a more-traditional pancake-like design. Intel's Foveros advanced packaging technology allows Intel to "mix and match" technology IP blocks with various memory and I/O elements - all in a small physical package for significantly reduced board size. The first product designed this way is "Lakefield," the Intel Core processor with Intel hybrid technology.

Industry analyst firm The Linley Group recently named Intel's Foveros 3D-stacking technology as "Best Technology" in its 2019 Analysts' Choice Awards. "Our awards program not only recognizes excellence in chip design and innovation, but also acknowledges the products that our analysts believe will have an impact on future designs," said Linley Gwennap, of The Linley Group.



For its part, Lakefield represents an entirely new class of chip. It delivers an optimal balance of performance and efficiency with best-in-class connectivity in a small footprint - Lakefield's package area measures just 12-by-12-by-1 millimeters. Its hybrid CPU architecture combines power-efficient "Tremont" cores with a performance scalable 10 nm "Sunny Cove" core to intelligently deliver productivity performance when needed and power-sipping efficiency when not needed for long battery life.

These benefits offer original equipment manufacturers more flexibility for thin-and-light form factor PCs, including the emerging dual-screen and foldable screen PC categories.

Recently, three designs have been announced that are powered by Lakefield and were co-engineered with Intel. In October 2019, Microsoft previewed the Surface Neo, a dual-screen device. And later that month at its developer conference, Samsung announced the Galaxy Book S. Unveiled at CES 2020 and expected to ship midyear is the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Apr 8, 2010
Messages
991 (0.19/day)
Processor Intel Core i5 8400
Motherboard Gigabyte Z370N-Wifi
Cooling Silverstone AR05
Memory Micron Crucial 16GB DDR4-2400
Video Card(s) Gigabyte GTX1080 G1 Gaming 8G
Storage Micron Crucial MX300 275GB
Display(s) Dell U2415
Case Silverstone RVZ02B
Power Supply Silverstone SSR-SX550
Keyboard Ducky One Red Switch
Software Windows 10 Pro 1909
With Foveros, processors are built in a totally new way: not with the various IPs spread out flat in two dimensions, but with them stacked in three dimensions.
Wouldn't that make it a lot harder to cool the chip?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Apr 12, 2013
Messages
6,728 (1.68/day)
cooling in the form of TEC
Which in reality never works in the way as advertised.
Anyway Feveros or any other 3d stacking has real limitations, for instance I don't see a 1650 super equivalent being paired with a 10900k in package & still be able to perform at its optimal best.
 
Joined
May 30, 2015
Messages
1,865 (0.58/day)
Location
Seattle, WA
Which in reality never works in the way as advertised.
Anyway Feveros or any other 3d stacking has real limitations, for instance I don't see a 1650 super equivalent being paired with a 10900k in package & still be able to perform at its optimal best.

There's nothing advertised, just technology patented. The technology clearly works and has been explored by IBM, AMD, Intel and Samsung. The question that remains is how it will scale, and what combination of techniques will be required to achieve desirable results.
 
Joined
Nov 15, 2016
Messages
454 (0.17/day)
System Name Sillicon Nightmares
Processor Intel i7 9700KF 5ghz (5.1ghz 4 core load, no avx offset), 4.7ghz ring, 1.412vcore 1.3vcio 1.264vcsa
Motherboard Asus Z390 Strix F
Cooling DEEPCOOL Gamer Storm CAPTAIN 360
Memory 2x8GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB (B-Die) 3600 14-14-14-28 1t, tRFC 220 tREFI 65535, tFAW 16, 1.545vddq
Video Card(s) ASUS GTX 1060 Strix 6GB XOC, Core: 2202-2240, Vcore: 1.075v, Mem: 9818mhz (Sillicon Lottery Jackpot)
Storage Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD, WD Blue 1TB, Seagate 3TB, Samsung 970 Evo Plus 512GB
Display(s) BenQ XL2430 1080p 144HZ + (2) Samsung SyncMaster 913v 1280x1024 75HZ + A Shitty TV For Movies
Case Deepcool Genome ROG Edition
Audio Device(s) Bunta Sniff Speakers From The Tip Edition With Extra Kenwoods
Power Supply Corsair AX860i/Cable Mod Cables
Mouse Logitech G602 Spilled Beer Edition
Keyboard Dell KB4021
Software Windows 10 x64
Benchmark Scores 13543 Firestrike (3dmark.com/fs/22336777) 601 points CPU-Z ST 37.4ns AIDA Memory
Which in reality never works in the way as advertised.
Anyway Feveros or any other 3d stacking has real limitations, for instance I don't see a 1650 super equivalent being paired with a 10900k in package & still be able to perform at its optimal best.
TEC cooling is pretty stupid considering that in this instance its going to be between sillicon and by its nature has a hot side, thus heating up the chips above it
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2013
Messages
6,728 (1.68/day)
There's nothing advertised, just technology patented. The technology clearly works and has been explored by IBM, AMD, Intel and Samsung. The question that remains is how it will scale, and what combination of techniques will be required to achieve desirable results.
You're talking about TEC right? Because I am & it's been advertised way before any patent Intel may have filed, especially in conjunction with Feveros.
It simply doesn't work the way it's portrayed & if it isn't TEC then perhaps you could link us to the said patent or cooling technology?
 
Joined
May 30, 2015
Messages
1,865 (0.58/day)
Location
Seattle, WA
TEC cooling is pretty stupid considering that in this instance its going to be between sillicon and by its nature has a hot side, thus heating up the chips above it

Some integrated blocks don't have such stringent thermal limits, such as multi-phase regulators, sensor arrays, and low-output control logic. Sinking heat to them from adjacent blocks that cannot handle higher temperatures isn't unheard of.


You're talking about TEC right? Because I am & it's been advertised way before any patent Intel may have filed, especially in conjunction with Feveros.

Correct. The problem is you're thinking of TEC in the context of those $4 ceramic packages you buy on eBay from some random cart stall in Shenzhen. TEC has a well documented and very precise efficiency curve, or cliff in most cases. Applying it sparingly while catering to the efficiency point can provide controllable thermal management.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/10210912.html

Also here's a great read on how achievable 3D stacking is even without exotic thermal management.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2017
Messages
3,475 (1.33/day)
Processor R5 5600X
Motherboard ASUS ROG STRIX B550-I GAMING
Cooling Alpenföhn Black Ridge
Memory 2*16GB DDR4-2666 VLP @3800
Video Card(s) EVGA Geforce RTX 3080 XC3
Storage 1TB Samsung 970 Pro, 2TB Intel 660p
Display(s) ASUS PG279Q, Eizo EV2736W
Case Dan Cases A4-SFX
Power Supply Corsair SF600
Mouse Corsair Ironclaw Wireless RGB
Keyboard Corsair K60
VR HMD HTC Vive
Which in reality never works in the way as advertised.
Anyway Feveros or any other 3d stacking has real limitations, for instance I don't see a 1650 super equivalent being paired with a 10900k in package & still be able to perform at its optimal best.
I don't think anyone is trying to use 3D stacking for high-power/performance chips at this point. Intel is presenting mobile stuff with Foveros and this is what 3D stacking is primarily aimed at. Dissipating 20-30W from a stack shouldn't be that much of a problem if they try to position dies with thermals in mind. And so far, they have been showing under 10W designs.
 
Joined
Jun 28, 2016
Messages
3,595 (1.27/day)
Which in reality never works in the way as advertised.
Stacked products exist and will go mainstream this year. I'm not sure why we're still discussing whether cooling works or not.
Anyway Feveros or any other 3d stacking has real limitations, for instance I don't see a 1650 super equivalent being paired with a 10900k in package & still be able to perform at its optimal best.
Every technology has limits.
Stacking high power chips makes no sense and is unlikely to happen, ever. That's not the target product segment.
 
Joined
Jan 8, 2017
Messages
8,860 (3.36/day)
System Name Good enough
Processor AMD Ryzen R9 7900 - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora Edge
Motherboard ASRock B650 Pro RS
Cooling 2x 360mm NexXxoS ST30 X-Flow, 1x 360mm NexXxoS ST30, 1x 240mm NexXxoS ST30
Memory 32GB - FURY Beast RGB 5600 Mhz
Video Card(s) Sapphire RX 7900 XT - Alphacool Eisblock Aurora
Storage 1x Kingston KC3000 1TB 1x Kingston A2000 1TB, 1x Samsung 850 EVO 250GB , 1x Samsung 860 EVO 500GB
Display(s) LG UltraGear 32GN650-B + 4K Samsung TV
Case Phanteks NV7
Power Supply GPS-750C
Intel is presenting mobile stuff with Foveros and this is what 3D stacking is primarily aimed at.

I can't see how 3D stacking is aimed at anything to be honest. Mobile chips are low performance and cheap to begin with and I seriously doubt 3D stacking reduces their cost in any way, if anything it's probably significantly more expensive, so in most applications you wouldn't want to touch them. Size wise the gains are trivial, most SoCs are highly integrated anyway. This is presented as a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
 
Joined
Jun 28, 2016
Messages
3,595 (1.27/day)
I can't see how 3D stacking is aimed at anything to be honest.
Well, you're not a large company involved in this industry and investing millions in this idea. You're not expected to see how. :)
Mobile chips are low performance and cheap to begin with and I seriously doubt 3D stacking reduces their cost in any way, if anything it's probably significantly more expensive, so in most applications you wouldn't want to touch them. Size wise the gains are trivial, most SoCs are highly integrated anyway.
Mobile chips are neither low performance nor cheap. They're just scaled - smaller than what you use in your desktop.
And of course stacking will make chips more expensive.

Size gains are anything but trivial. Mobile packages are enormous - especially when a more powerful GPU is added to the mix.
Moreover, Foveros is not just about the SoC. It also includes RAM - effectively (at least) halving the total area of these components on a PCB.
This is presented as a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
Or you just don't understand the problem? :)
 
Joined
Aug 21, 2013
Messages
1,669 (0.43/day)
Intel's problem is not making cool products or even just annoucements. It's about being able to to produce them in scale.
So while Lakefield looks cool it's essentially a paperweight until it's widely available. Make it happen Intel!
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2013
Messages
6,728 (1.68/day)
Joined
Jun 28, 2016
Messages
3,595 (1.27/day)
Top