Due to shifting demand, Intel has discontinued its Foveros-based Lakefield processors which were heralded for their “hybrid technology” when they were first unveiled back in 2018.
At that time, the chip giant positioned Lakefield and the Foveros technology powering these processors as an answer to Arm's big.LITTLE because these chips have one main CPU core paired with several lower-power cores.
Specifically Lakefield processors feature one 10nm Sunny Cove CPU core paired with four Tremont Atom-based cores. While the bigger Sunny Cove core is used to tackle heavy workloads that require a lot of power, the Tremont cores are used to more efficiently handle background tasks.
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Although Lakefield chips were intended to power the future of portable computers, they only made their way into two devices: The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Fold and the Intel version of the Samsung Galaxy Book S.
Just last year, many believed that the architecture behind Lakefield processors would soon become the default for foldable devices due to their smaller board size. In fact Microsoft was even planning to use Intel's Lakefield chips in its announced but still unreleased Surface Neo which was announced alongside the Surface Duo.
Lakefield discontinued
As reported by The Register, Intel confirmed that its Lakefield processors (officially known as “Intel Core Processors with Intel Hybrid Technology”) have now been discontinued in a product change notification recently sent out to customers.
The last orders for the company's remaining Lakefield processors will be taken at the end of October of this year and the last shipment is scheduled to take place around the end of April of next year. Apparently market demand for Lakefield chips wasn't high enough and had shifted to other products which is why Intel decided to discontinue the family of processors.
In a statement to The Register, an Intel spokesperson explained that while Lakefield is being discontinued, the chips represented an important milestone for the company, saying:
"Intel Core Processors with Intel Hybrid Technology, also known by the codename 'Lakefield,' were an important milestone in our xPU strategy and ongoing architecture innovation. They demonstrated the potential of hybrid x86 CPU and new packaging technology for enabling significantly reduced board size, while delivering Intel Core performance. As shown in the product change notification, demand for Lakefield is being shifted to other products. This has no impact to our next-generation PC processors, codenamed 'Alder Lake.'
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Via The Register
