Unlike Alder Lake (12th Gen) and Raptor Lake (13th Gen), Meteor Lake is based on the new Intel 4 process node, which is the chipmaker’s own nomenclature for its 7nm die lithography. It’s the next step for the chipmaker before it can achieve Intel 18A, which is a little later down the road with its Lunar Lake generation.
In addition to the new die lithography, Meteor Lake is also built with a new Foveros 3D packaging technology that in turn, seems to employ a multi-chiplet design. If that sounds all too familiar, it is because AMD actually did it first with its Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs that combine a 5nm die with another 6nm I/O controller. Another page that Intel appears to be taking out of AMD’s playbook is the integration of its own ARC graphics cores into the CPU, which means replacing the Iris integrated GPU that the chipmaker has been using for what really feels like an eternity. But what really makes Meteor Lake stands out is that it is the first Intel CPU architecture that will ship out with an all new integrated AI Engine, or VPU underneath the hood.
The move towards making Meteor Lake AI-compliant is an understandable one, given how fast and exponentially the likes of Generative AI applications, such as ChatGPT, has risen and resulted in a large-scale demand for hardware that is capable of running said applications. As for when we can expect Meteor Lake to be available, Intel didn’t specify an exact launch window but if the company’s trend is anything to go by, we could see the lineup rear its head nearing the end of the year. (Source: Intel)
