Meet Intel's Ice Lake processor, due to speed up PCs in 2019

A 300mm silicon wafer is studded with hundreds of Intel's Ice Lake processors. The processor is the first the chipmaker will manufacture using a long-delayed 10-nanometer process.

Intel showed this Dell PC prototype running Intel's Ice Lake processors.

Becky Loop, Intel's chief client architect, shows two 10nm Ice Lake processors for laptops. The chips will arrive in laptops, but desktop computers that can draw plenty of power from the electricity plug will continue to use earlier chips built with the older 14nm manufacturing process.

The Sunny Cove microarchitecture at the heart of Intel's Ice Lake processors does 18 percent more computing work for each tick of the chip's clock than the previous design, Intel says.

Intel's Ice Lake processors feature a graphics system that's 1.4 to 1.8 times faster -- a major speed boost for gamers. On this photo, Intel's Iris graphics subsystem is the darker part of each rectangular chip.

Intel details its Ice Lake processor's features and processor layout.

Part of the speed boost in Intel's Ice Lake processors comes from increasing high-speed cache memory that's used to keep data ready for fast access. The fastest level 1 cache increases from 32 kilobytes to 48KB, and the level 2 cache increases from 256KB to 512KB.

Intel's Project Athena aims to improve a wide range of PC abilities at the same time.

On some AI speed tests, Ice Lake processors are double the speed of their predecessors. A small amount of dedicated low-power circuitry is good for voice control.

Intel's Ice Lake processors will arrive in 2019 in two variations: the low-power U series at left and the even lower-power Y series at right.

Intel PC group leader Chris Walker holds a Dell laptop powered by an Intel Ice Lake chip.

Intel's 10nm Ice Lake processors

Intel says its new Ice Lake chips will offer the biggest speed boost since Merom and Nehalem designs of 2006 and 2008.

Intel built fast Thunderbolt 3 abilities directly into Ice Lake processor, making it easier and cheaper for PC makers to include four of the high-speed data ports.

Intel's Foveros chip-stacking technology will let it stack multiple processor elements together for faster performance, as in this processor code-named "Lakefield."

Intel expects its Lakefield processor will enable new varieties of PCs.