Intel 3 is ‘ahead of schedule’, Raptor Lake will offer 6GHz clock speeds

The Intel Technology Tour kicked off this week and Leo has boots on the ground at Intel's Israel facilities to learn all about Intel's CPU development process.

During the Technology Tour, Intel Corporate VP and GM of Validation, Engineering and IDC, Karin Eibschitz, and Intel Corporate VP and GM of Client Platforms, Isic Silas, gave insight into Intel's product development cycle. In the images below you can see some of the slides shown, as well as the original white board used while planning out Alder Lake.

Typically for Intel, there is a 30 month cycle in place from ‘definition' to product shipping. Definition is the conceptual phase, with just a handful of employees in a room putting down the basic foundations for a new product. The design phase is much, much bigger and often involves thousands of people.

Around three to four months after tape-in, Intel will have the first silicon samples. In the case of Intel Alder Lake, the company used 15,000 Alder Lake systems during development. At the end of each product cycle, Intel goes back and analyses the good and the bad so it can make adjustments for the future.

Intel has a very busy few years ahead, with plans to introduce five process nodes in four years. Currently, Intel plans to have its Intel 4 node in mass production in the second half of 2022. We are also told that Intel 3 is ‘ahead of schedule', which is good news, but the architecture is still expected between late 2023 and early 2024. For reference, current-gen Intel CPUs are using the Intel 7 node, and the next big shift will be towards Intel 4 over the next few months.

This all comes just ahead of Intel's Raptor Lake desktop CPU launch. These processors should deliver 6GHz clock speeds, with the potential to hit 8GHz speeds through overclocking. Intel is also promising support for higher-speed DDR5 memory.

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KitGuru Says: Intel has a lot in the air right now between a busy CPU roadmap, an impending GPU launch, the construction of new production facilities and a shift towards offering foundry services to outside companies. We'll be catching up with Intel again in a few weeks time, as new CPUs are just on the horizon. 

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