Intel Unveils Sunny Cove, Gen11 Graphics, Xe Discrete GPU, 3D Stacking

Intel Architecture Day

Intel's new heads of silicon development, led by Raja Koduri, the Senior Vice President of Core and Visual Computing, and Jim Keller, the Senior Vice President of Silicon Engineering, hosted its Architecture Day here in Santa Clara to outline the company's broad new vision for the future. Dr. Murthy Renduchintala, Intel's chief engineering officer and group president of the Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group (TSCG) also presented at the event, which was held in the home of Intel co-founder Robert Noyce.

Highlights included the unveiling of the company's new Sunny Cove CPU microarchitecture, its new Gen11 integrated graphics, 'Foveros' 3D chip stacking technology, a teaser of the company's new Xe line of discrete graphics cards, and a new "One API" software designed to simplify programming across Intel's entire product stack. We also caught a glimpse of the first 10nm Ice Lake processor for the data center.

Intel has amassed a treasure trove of new technologies over the last several years as it has diversified into new areas like AI, autonomous driving, 5G, FPGAs, and IoT, and other areas. It's even added GPUs to the list. Intel's process technology touches every segment of all that tech, as well as the chips that power them, but its delayed 10nm process has slowed the company's progress.

To help get back on track, Intel brought in Raja Koduri and Jim Keller to outline a new cohesive vision that spans all facets of its operations. Together with the company's leadership, the pair identified six key building blocks that the company will focus on over the coming years. Those pillars include process technology, architectures, memory, interconnects, security, and software. The company hopes that focusing on these key areas will accelerate its pace of innovation and help it regain its competitive footing.

The event was a wide-ranging affair with an almost overwhelming amount of information and insight into the company's plans for the future, but a few new key technologies stood out as particularly promising. Let's take a look at some of the most interesting new technologies Intel is working on.

Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.