Intel on Wednesday revealed their upcoming “Sunny Cove” processors. The new 10nm architecture processors are expected to be available in 2019. The new architecture, set to be used in Intel’s Core and Xeon series CPUs, could be used in Macs in 2019 and beyond.
The chips are described as being “deeper, wider and smarter“, and will offer greater performance paired with reduced power draw.
The die shrink comes after a handful of delays, as Intel initially scheduled 10nm mass production for as early as 2015. Manufacturing woes pushed the date back to 2018, with the company now finally promising 10nm processors in consumer hands by mid-2019.
No official announcement has been made as to whether Apple will be using the new chips in their Mac lineup of desktop and laptop computers. However, it is likely that Apple will make use of the new CPUs in future Mac models.
A detailed report from ArsTechnica describes some of the new technology built into the series:
Sunny Cove also makes the first major change to x64 virtual memory support since AMD introduced its x86-64 64-bit extension to x86 in 2003. Although the virtual memory addresses used on these systems take 64 bits to store, they only actually contain 48 useful bits of information. Bits 0 through 47 are used, with the top 16 bits, 48 through 63, all copies of bit 47. This limits virtual address space to 256TB. These virtual addresses are mapped to physical addresses using a page table structure with four levels, with physical memory addresses also limited to 48 bits. This means that these systems can support a maximum of 256TB of physical memory.
Intel also repeated its plans to offer a discrete graphics option by 2020.