Intel Engineer Reveals “Griffin Cove” Development Is Already Underway; Says Relying On Intel’s Nodes Alone “Got Them Into Trouble” In The Past

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Intel Now Adopts an "Agnostic" Approach With The Node To Choose For CPU Designs, Allowing An Adaptable Environment​

Intel's renowned engineer has revealed that Team Blue is already working on the "great-grandchild" of Lion Cove, validating the existence of Griffin Cove.

Team Blue's CPU business, in the past few years, has seen a sluggish momentum since the firm has been underperforming since the release of its 12th-generation "Alder Lake" processors, and it has now come to a point where the firm is finding it challenging to maintain competition with the likes of AMD. But, it seems like there's optimism for Team Blue ahead, given that in an interview with KitGuru, Intel's Senior Principal Engineer in Core Design Ori Lempel has revealed that the firm is working three generations ahead of Lion Cove in order to maintain a market edge.

Lempel reiterated that the firm has already completed its work with Cougar Cove, which is supposed to be featured in Panther Lake SoCs, shipping out in H2 2025. So, judging by this, it's safe to say that Intel is focused on the successor of Cougar Cove, which will likely be "Griffin Cove," although that is not official yet. Well, there are a lot of rumors around Griffin Cove for Razer Lake, where it is said that Team Blue will adopt an all "P-Core" strategy, but we won't get into speculations for now.

An essential factor mentioned by Lempel is that Intel's CPU design team has now evolved to a point where they operate on a "99% process node agnostic" approach, which means that the firm now has flexibility over what node they would like for a particular CPU lineup. Under Pat Gelsinger and his "IDM 2.0" approach, Intel was focused on adopting their in-house nodes for CPU designs. Still, often, the processes showed disappointing performance or yield rates, which meant that CPU designs needed to be re-evaluated, coming at a cost.

With a more adaptable approach, Intel now ensures that "libraries, analog components, and designs can be synthesized for any node", so the firm won't be hesitant to adopt a dual-sourcing strategy for processes. Apart from this, with a more "hardened" strategy, Team Blue now creates CPU designs on "multiple nodes" and then evaluates parameters like time-to-market and performance to adopt a particular process, whether from the IFS or TSMC.

Intel's dependence on the IFS for its CPU designs has contributed tremendously to the firm's recent performance, and it seems like now, the company won't rule out adopting an external partner for its semiconductor needs, which has been said by Intel's Products CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus. in the past. So, Panther Lake is where we will see rather a "new Intel," and that's when we'll decide whether Team Blue has managed to make a comeback.

Intel Engineer Reveals "Griffin Cove" Development Is Already Underway; Says Relying On Intel's Nodes Alone "Got Them Into Trouble" In The Past

Intel's renowned engineer has revealed that Team Blue is already working on the "great-grandchild" of Lion Cove, the Griffin Cove.

wccftech.com

 

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Team Blue now creates CPU designs on "multiple nodes" and then evaluates parameters like time-to-market and performance to adopt a particular process, whether from the IFS or TSMC.

Hedging Smartly

 

[MKWVentures]

Be able to outsource depending on what is best for the product. Don't be dependent on IFS

If only someone had thought of this in 2020 LOL.

 

[nghanayem]

Funny all the edditoaliztion of what wasn't said. They edditors are talking as if this wasn't already the case. Oh surely Intel foundry sucking is why core IP is 99% process agnostic. But then ignore Intel saying last year that Lion cove and crestmont are 99% process agnostic. The process agnostic way of doing things started back in the BK days almost assuredly due to the 10nm slippages. It is also just how everyone does chip design who wasn't pre 2018 Intel.