Computer processors became one step closer to being like the CPU in your phone or tablet at CES 2019 and that’s a good thing.
While Intel and AMD were outdoing each other at CES 2019 by announcing their respective 10nm and 7nm processors, both companies also introduced hybrid processors that may have an even greater effect of change the future of computing forever.
On one side, there’s Intel’s LakeField processors, whose architecture is closer to that of ARM CPU than a traditional computer chip. Instead of just having a block of 10nm CPU cores, the LakeField processor will feature one central 10nm Sunny Cove core paired with four Treemont Atom cores.
Later into the CES 2019, AMD also introduced its own hybrid processor with its Ryzen 3rd Generation chip that paired an eight-core 7nm chiplet with a second 14nm chiplet to manage memory controllers and PCIe lanes.
Both processors aim to do different things with they’re hybrid architectures, but they share one thing in common: they’re both moving away from the traditional monolithic processor.
Now after all that talk you might be wondering what the difference is between monolithic and hybrid processor designs? The answer is actually simpler than you might think.
For the most part, processors that have come in laptops and PC have stuck to a monolithic design, in which the there’s one homogeneous processor die built from a single architecture. For example, Intel Coffee Lake processors used a single 14nm die, Ryzen CPUs featured 14nm die, Ryzen 2nd Generation a 12nm die, and so on.
