How Intel's Tiger Lake CPUs Are Designed For A 'Spectrum Of Needs'

Intel's new Tiger Lake processors for ultra-thin laptops are packed with new silicon building blocks for AI, graphics and other technologies to serve a "spectrum of needs" in the mobile computing space, according to top Intel engineer Boyd Phelps. In an interview with CRN, Phelps said the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has taken a holistic and balanced approach to the engineering and design of the new processors, which are the first CPUs in the 11th-generation Intel Core family. This means that the company has devised ways, for instance, to offload certain AI workloads, like blurring the background in a Zoom video call, to new accelerators within the chip to make the workloads run faster while also saving on power. "For us, we thought about it in the context of how the different workloads have evolved and emerged. They all have kind of a different sweet spot, so for us, we geared Tiger Lake to meet that spectrum of needs," said Phelps, who is vice president of the Client Engineering Group and general manager of Client and Core Development Group at Intel.