Intel Alder Lake-N specs revealed: 8 Gracemont architecture cores, 32 Xe-LP architecture EUs
Intel’s 12th-generation Core series desktop processors last year, also known as Alder Lake-S, were the first products on the desktop platform to use a hybrid architecture. At the CES 2022 exhibition earlier this year, Intel launched the 12th generation Core series mobile processors, namely Alder Lake-P and Alder Lake-M, further expanding the use of the new architecture.
Alder Lake is divided into Performance Cores based on the Golden Cove architecture and Efficient Cores based on the Gracemont architecture, Alder Lake-S, Alder Lake-P, and Alder Lake-M. While Alder Lake has covered desktops, laptops, and ultra-thin mobile devices, processors involving ultra-low-power and ultra-low-cost devices still need to be updated. To this end, Intel will be preparing to launch Alder Lake-N to meet the needs of this segment of the market.
According to TomsHardware, Intel Alder Lake-N will feature only power-efficient cores based on the Gracemont architecture, up to a maximum of eight, via Intel’s upload of the Sound Open Firmware (SOF) project’s Linux repository material. The cores will be divided into two clusters, each of which will be configured with 2MB of L2 cache and will share the L3 cache. In addition, Alder Lake-N is also equipped with a core display of the Xe-LP architecture, with a maximum of 32 EUs, and has the latest codec functions, so it will have good multimedia playback capabilities.
It remains to be seen how Intel allocates Alder Lake-N, and it may be applied to processors under the Atom, Pentium, and Celeron brands in the future.
