Intel Core M Broadwell Architecture Preview
Intel's latest processor design and manufacturing effort marks a first for the semiconductor industry. No other semiconductor manufacturer in the world is building chips at the level of Intel's 14nm (nanometer) process node; even large memory manufacturers like Toshiba and Samsung are just now hitting 19nm. As we've reported previously, the processor Intel is rolling out for its first volume production vehicle at 14nm is code named "Broadwell." And, as we learned in a recent meeting at the Intel's Hillsboro, Oregon development and fab center, the first processor family based on Intel's Broadwell microarchitecture, will be known as Core M.
Broadwell and the Intel Core M family is what Intel refers to as a "tick" in their product design cadence, where a 'tick" generally marks a die shrink and a "tock" marks a new microarchitecture. The last tick we saw from Intel was their 22nm Ivy Bridge design, then came Haswell's tock. Broadwell and Intel's Core M family are a shrink and optimization of Haswell at 14nm, but Intel took the opportunity to engineer in a few new features as well...
