Hot Chips 2024 conference published a detailed schedule of presentations by Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and all other participants that will take place at the event. Over the course of three days, from August 25 to 27, physical and virtual attendees will be able to familiarize themselves with tutorials, presentations, and keynotes from representatives of many major technology companies. Traditionally, Hot Chips offers a deep technical immersion into new processor architectures. Among others, this year’s Hot Chips will focus on AMD Zen 5, NVIDIA Blackwell, and Intel Lunar Lake.
Intel
On Monday, August 26, Intel is scheduled to present a new product called «Lunar Lake: the 16th generation Intel Core processor». This is an interesting name, given that Intel has supposedly abandoned generations in processor names. Intel also plans to present Granite Rapids D, AI systems, and optical networks.
Recently, the company suggested many details about the Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake architectures. According to the company, Lunar Lake processors, which are scheduled to be released in the third quarter of 2024, will provide 1.4 times the AI performance of Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chips.
Intel also claims significant improvements in battery life and energy efficiency for laptops: Lunar Lake delivers the lowest x86 processor power consumption in history, 20% less than Qualcomm’s chips and 30% less than AMD’s Ryzen 7 7840U.
The next-generation Arrow Lake processors for AI desktops are on the roadmap for the fourth quarter of 2024, and updates to these chips will be unveiled during the Intel Tech Tour event preceding Computex 2024.
Intel has updated all Lunar Lake computing components, including the CPU, NPU, and a new integrated graphics processor with the Xe2 architecture. The Xe2 iGPU design debuts with Lunar Lake and will deliver 1.5 times the performance of current-generation Meteor Lake chips, utilizing the same architecture and feature set that will be used in future Battlemage discrete gaming GPUs.
The Lunar Lake processor consists of three chips, which is one less than the four-tile Meteor Lake, indicating that Intel has combined the SoC and GPU. Lunar Lake will have P-core with the new Lion Cove microarchitecture and E-core with Skymont microarchitecture. Intel has not yet released detailed specifications for Lunar Lake, but the company’s materials suggest that the processor, dubbed Lunar Lake MX, will have 4 P-core and 4 E-core (4+4).
Arrow Lake is likely to be based on the same architecture as Lunar Lake — the company describes the series as an extension of the Core Ultra family. The processors will have more cores and an increased power limit. Intel will also have more powerful mobile variants of Arrow Lake for high-performance laptops. Arrow Lake will be built on Intel’s 20A process, while the next architecture, Panther Lake, will be based on Intel’s 18A process in 2025.
AMD
Presentation of the next generation Zen 5 core from AMD at Hot Chips 2024 will take place on Tuesday, August 27. There have been quite a few leaks of Zen 5 in recent weeks and months, including unofficial information on Linux changes, compiler releases, and the company’s PC partners, but the Hot Chips 2024 presentation will provide a comprehensive look at Zen 5.
Previously was reportedannounced that AMD CEO Lisa Su will deliver the opening keynote on June 3 at Computex 2024. AMD updated website to list the keynote topics — they are all about AI and high performance. We also talk about «the next generation of high-performance solutions for PCs, data centers, and AI», which is supported by the Zen5 architecture and AMD XDNA AI accelerators.
- NVIDIA Blackwell GPU: Advancing generative artificial intelligence and accelerated computing (Ajay Tirumala and Raymond Wong, NVIDIA)
- Snapdragon X Elite Qualcomm Oryon processor: design and architecture overview (Gerard Williams, Qualcomm)
- New generation IBM Z processor ~5.5 GHz and AI Inferencing Accelerator chipset (Christian Jacoby, IBM)
Other interesting tech news will come from presentations by companies such as Microsoft, SK hynix, Meta, Tesla, Frore, and OpenAI. This year, Hot Chips 2024 has a mixed format with offline events at Stanford University’s Memorial Auditorium. Attendance will cost from $65 for one day (for students) to $750 for three days for non-IEEE members.
Sources: Hot Chips, Tom’s Hardware, VideoCardz