Intel debuted an updated road map at its IFS Direct event, showcasing what the company is doing through 2027.
Intel revealed a new road map at its Intel Foundry Services (IFS) Direct event that will take the company into 2027. It’s an extension of the road map Intel laid out nearly three years ago, shortly after Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger took the reins of the company.
Although processor road maps aren’t anything new, Intel has delivered on the cadence it laid out a few years ago. This updated road map shows what comes next as we approach the end of the original plan Gelsinger laid out. Keep in mind that Intel is focused on the process advancements here and not individual processors.Meteor Lake and where we are now
We need to start with a bit of background. The major shift for Intel’s road map started in 2021 with the release of Alder Lake and the Intel 7 node. In the year after, Intel released a refinement of the Intel 7 node with its Raptor Lake chips. And late last year, we saw the debut of the Intel 4 node with the release of Meteor Lake processors.
This is where the Intel’s processor road map and node road map start to diverge. You’ll see new nodes faster than you’ll see new processors, as Intel offers manufacturing to external partners to get a head start on designing their chips. Keep that in mind as we go through the road map because it may be months from when a node is completed to when we see it show up in a shipping Intel processor.Intel 3 and Sierra Forest
There’s no better example of how Intel’s processor and node road map differ than Intel 3. This node is complete from a foundry side, but we haven’t seen it show up in a processor yet. From what we know, Intel 3 won’t show up in a consumer processor. Instead, Intel has confirmed we’ll see Intel 3 in Xeon server chips.
The two coming up are Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids. Gelsinger says that Sierra Forest will come out in the first half of 2024, with Granite Rapids following later in the year. Sierra Forest features Intel’s first Xeon processors using only efficient cores, allowing Intel to achieve an insane core count of 288 in the flagship chip.
Granite Rapids uses performance cores, and they’ll arrive as a successor to Emerald Rapids this year. Intel says these two lines are the “lead vehicles for Intel 3.” It’s possible we could see consumer processors with Intel 3, but we don’t have any details about that right now.
