Intel launches low power Lakefield hybrid CPUs

The smallest x86 processors are here, and with Foveros 3D stacking.

The new CPUs – a Core i5 and Core i3, have a 10nm single Sunny Cove core for heavier workloads and four low-power Tremont cores for background tasks that are less intensive. While ARM laptops, like those running Qualcomm’s chips, have used a special version of Windows 10 for ARM that emulated 32-bit apps and doesn’t support 64-bit, the Lakefield chips will natively support both.

It’s going to be in the Samsung Galaxy Book S, a clamshell laptop that previously only came with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx and is launching only in select markets, as well as Lenovo’s upcoming ThinkPad X1 Fold. Intel says that the Foveros CPU package is 12 x 12 x 1 mm and gets there by stacking the two logic dies and two layers of DRAM. This also gets rid of the need for external memory.