Launched last week, the Samsung Galaxy Book S features a new chip than Intel calls a “next generation Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology”.
"Hybrid technology" here refers to Intel’s much-vaunted Foveros, found in the Core i5-L16G7 - a 10nm Lakefield CPU clocked at 3GHz with 4MB cache.
It uses one big core and four small Atom cores, which is another first for this processor, emulating what ARM has been doing for quite a few years now with big.LITTLE. Note, Intel doesn’t currently list this CPU on its ARK database.
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What makes Foveros so interesting is the fact it allows different, usually separate components to be layered one on top of the other in a 3D stack. To recycle Intel’s analogy, it's like layered cake as opposed to pancake layers.
You end up with something that occupies much smaller real estate and, because they are physically closer (and more tightly integrated), should end up costing less, using less energy and reducing latency (which will improve performance).
In a not so distant future, such a chip could mix and match memory, connectivity, I/O and even storage class memory, allowing Intel to offer a plethora of options to meet the needs of its customers - almost spilling into the world of semi-custom offerings.
As for the new Galaxy Book S (the previous one used the Qualcomm 8CX), it weighs 950g, comes with a 13.3-inch 600-nits touchscreen display, 512GB eUFS (no SSD), 8GB LPDDR4x memory, four speakers, two USB Type-C ports and a 42Whr battery that should power the laptop for at least half a day.
The device will suit a consumer's needs, but many of its features (e.g. long battery life, Windows Hello sign-in with a fingerprint sensor and Windows 10 Professional) are likely to be especially popular with a business audience.
It's available to pre-order at £999 in the UK, but prices for other regions have yet to be announced.
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