Intel 6-core Coffee Lake CPUs to hit laptops in Q2 2018

A mobile product roadmap from Intel found its way to the Internet and it reveals how Intel will position its future Cannon Lake and Coffee Lake architectures.

Looking at it chronologically, at the moment Intel is making the transition to Kaby Lake, which is the company's third processor architecture on the 14nm process. The low-power 4.5W and 15W Kaby Lake Y-series and U-series models with GT2 graphics arrive this quarter, the 45W parts are expected in Q4 2016 and the 15W/28W models with GT3e follow in Q1 2017.

Towards the end of the 2017, Intel expects to launch its mobile Cannon Lake processors but this will be exclusively for the low-power Y-series and U-series. There will be 5.2W TDP Y-series and a 15W Y-series, both with GT2 graphics. There's no clarification for why the TDP of the Y-series jumps from 4.5W to 5.2W, it could be because Intel is moving voltage regulation back to the processor.

Is the 10nm node in trouble?
Cannon Lake is believed to be the first 10nm part from Intel and this roadmap suggests there's some truth to the rumors that Intel is struggling with the new node. The more powerful laptop chips will not use Cannon Lake but will be Coffee Lake based chips. Based on all the rumors we've heard over the last couple of months, Coffee Lake will be Intel's fourth 14nm generation!

Intel hasn't made any official comments about this yet but based on what we know so far, it seems the processors for the more energy-efficient applications will transition to 10nm while the more powerful processors will stick with 14nm. The introduction of Coffee Lake is anticipated for Q2 2018, it will include quad-core 15W/28W parts with GT3e graphics as well as the first mobile six-core parts from Intel. The latter will have a 45W TDP and GT2 graphics.

The slide also reveals the codename of the future Atom architecture, at the moment Intel is moving to Apollo Lake and in the fourth quarter of 2017 we can expect the introduction of Gemini Lake.