Amid its escalating issues, Intel has announced new processor families, including one obviously aimed at Arm designs.
Intel has been experiencing a slew of problems, from supply issues to security flaws to possibly outsourcing their production to TSMC or Samsung. The company has also faced increased pressure from a resurgent AMD, as well as Arm Holdings, whose designs are used by Apple in iPhones, iPads and now Macs. In spite of that, Intel is working hard to regain its position as the most innovative chipmaker in the industry.
At CES 2021, Intel announced four new processor families. The vPro platform is the 11th Gen Intel chip aimed at businesses, offering the best performance. The Evo vPro platform is aimed at business laptop users, offering optimizations to improve battery life, responsiveness and instant wake features.
Intel also teased its 12th generation chip, the Rocket Lake and Alder Lake lines. The Rocket Lake is a series of desktop processors, and will be aimed at gamers, PC enthusiasts and those who require the fastest performance.
The most interesting addition, however, is the Alder Lake line. Intel describes it as “the next-generation processor that represents a significant breakthrough in x86 architecture and Intel’s most power-scalable system-on-chip. Due in second half of 2021, Alder Lake will combine high-performance cores and high-efficiency cores into a single product. Alder Lake will also be Intel’s first processor built on a new, enhanced version of 10nm SuperFin and will serve as the foundation for leadership desktop and mobile processors that deliver smarter, faster and more efficient real-world computing.”
If that sounds familiar, it should. The combination of high-performance and high-efficiency cores is the same design principle Apple has touted with its Arm-based custom silicon it uses across its various devices. Apple’s new Arm-based M1 Macs have been met with rave reviews, smashing competitors, in both performance and battery life. It’s little wonder that Intel wants to offer a chip that more directly competes.
If Intel can pull off its plans, the company could well regain some of the standing it once had.