Intel Unveils 10nm ‘SuperFin’ Process Node

by Joel Hruska

Intel unleashed a great deal of information about its upcoming products this morning, including new details on Tiger Lake, its upcoming mobile chip. There’s been no small amount of speculation about what kind of performance the new CPU would offer, especially after Ice Lake received mixed reviews on the CPU side. While the 10nm chip’s GPU was a significant jump forward for Intel, the CPU’s higher IPC was balanced by a lower maximum frequency. Overall, Intel had to give up almost exactly as much frequency as it gained in IPC and performance, outside a few specific cases, was largely static against Intel’s 14nm family of chips.

Tiger Lake is intended to change that by reclaiming the frequency that Intel had to give up last generation. The company has made a number of improvements to its 10nm process node and it’s collectively marketing them as “SuperFin.”

Tiger Lake’s gate pitch is larger, meaning Intel decreased its density slightly to improve its electrical characteristics. This isn’t surprising, the company did something similar over the lifetime of 14nm as well. Improvements to channel mobility and reduced resistance lower the overall…