As already known, in the fourth quarter will begin to appear budget laptops, nettops and convertible laptops based on the new single-chip assembly of Intel - SoC, code-named Gemini Lake. The solution is to replace the 14-nm assemblies of Apollo Lake, officially introduced in the spring of 2016. This class of solutions, as previously reported in Intel, is designed to minimize the cost of components for the assembly of compact budget systems. For example, SoC data allow to simplify the design
of motherboards to 6 layers of wiring and reduce the thickness of the boards to 1 mm and even more. In this regard, Gemini Lake has become more integrated, for the first time having built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controller, as well as a modem for cellular with ligament (in the scheme it is the CNVi unit, Connectivity Integration Architecture).
Some time ago we reported that Gemini Lake assemblies will receive more progressive video decoding blocks, although the video core will remain the 9th generation Gen9LP (as in Skylake / Kaby Lake) and will consist of 18 EU execution units. Instead of 8-bit VP9 (Profile 0) and HEVC, 10-bit codecs VP9 (Profile 2) and HEVC will be part of Gemini Lake. HDMI interface change the version of HDMI 1.4 to HDMI 2.0. This will mean that the 4K video will work with a 60-Hz sweep, and not with 30-Hz,
as in the previous generation. In addition, the port (standard) eDP 1.4 will be supported.
The computational x86-core cores of Gemini Lake processors (code name of architecture - Goldmont Plus) received certain improvements in comparison with Apollo Lake cores and Goldmont architecture. So, instead of 3-wide pipelines with simultaneous selection of three instructions, the new architecture received 4-wide pipelines and allows processing 4 instructions at the same time. This improvement can increase productivity by 10-15% without increasing the clock frequency. Also, the cache size
of the second level, which is now 4 MB, is doubled.
The memory controller built into SoC Gemini Lake is a two-channel solution with support for mobile memory LPDDR3-1866 MHz or LPDDR4-2400 MHz. In the presence of interfaces PCI Express 2.0, SATA 6 Gb / s, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0, as well as eMMC 5.1, although the interesting UFS interface for working with flash memory by Intel is still ignored. The USB 3.1 port and USB Type-C connector support are also missing, although this platform should charge the batteries and support power through the UCB Type-C
port.
Finally, SoC Gemini Lake received a modified GMM speech recognition unit. This concerns the support of DNN (Dynamic Neural Networks), which is implemented, for example, in the algorithm of Microsoft Cortana. Related Products :
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