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Skylake (microarchitecture)

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Skylake
General information
LaunchedLaunched at Gamescom on August 5, 2015[1]
Product code80662
Performance
Max. CPU clock rateUp to 4.2GHz
Cache
L1 cache64 KiB per core
L2 cache256 KiB per core
L3 cache8192 KiB shared
Architecture and classification
InstructionsMMX, AES-NI, CLMUL, FMA3
Extensions
Physical specifications
Transistors
Cores
  • 2–4
Socket
Products, models, variants
Brand name
    • Core i3
    • Core i5
    • Core i7
    • Xeon
    • Pentium
    • Celeron
History
Predecessors
SuccessorsKaby Lake (not a tick following the Skylake tock, breaking the tick-tock release cycle)

Skylake is the codename used by Intel for a processor microarchitecture which was launched in August 2015[5] as the successor to the Broadwell microarchitecture.[6] Skylake is a microarchitecture redesign using an already existing process technology, serving as a "tock" in the Intel's "tick-tock" manufacturing and design model. According to Intel, the redesign brings greater CPU and GPU performance and reduced power consumption. Skylake uses the same 14 nm manufacturing process[7] as Broadwell.

An initial batch of Skylake CPUs (6600K and 6700K) was announced for immediate availability during the Gamescom on August 5, 2015,[1] unusually soon after Broadwell. While the industry observers initially believed that the issues[8] impacting Broadwell would also affect Skylake, newer information suggests that Intel will be seeking to recover by maintaining the traditional "tick-tock" cadence for Skylake and shortening Broadwell's release cycle instead. Other CPUs based on this architecture will be released later in 2015.[9]

In early 2015, some media reports stated that Intel considers Skylake to be its "most significant processor" for a decade, due to the enhanced power efficiency and wire-free capabilities.[10][11]

Features

Like its predecessor, Broadwell, Skylake is expected to become initially available in four variants, identified by the suffixes "S" (SKL-S), "H" (SKL-H), "U" (SKL-U), and "Y" (SKL-Y). An overclockable "K" variant with unlocked multipliers is expected to launch at the same time.[12] The H, U and Y variants will be manufactured in ball grid array (BGA) packaging, while the S variant will be manufactured in land grid array (LGA) packaging using a new socket, LGA 1151.[13] Skylake will be used in conjunction with Intel 100 Series chipsets, also known as Sunrise Point.[14]

The major expected changes between the Haswell and Skylake architectures include the abandonment and removal of the fully integrated voltage regulator (FIVR) introduced with Haswell,[15] and the integration of the Platform Controller Hub (PCH) onto the die for Skylake's H, U and Y variants, effectively following a system-on-chip (SoC) design layout. The S variant will remain a two-chip design. On the variants that will use a discrete PCH, Direct Media Interface (DMI) 2.0 will be replaced by DMI 3.0, which promises speeds of up to 8 GT/s.

Skylake's U and Y variants will support one DIMM slot per channel (of type LPDDR3 only, for the models announced as of June 2014), while H and S variants will support two DIMM slots per channel.[13] Skylake's launch and sales lifespan occur at the same time as the ongoing SDRAM market transition related to a dropoff in the DDR3 SDRAM memory as it gradually becomes replaced by the DDR4 memory. Rather than working exclusively with DDR4, the Skylake microarchitecture is expected to remain backward compatible by interoperating with both types of memory. Accompanying the microarchitecture's support for both memory standards, a new SO-DIMM type capable of carrying either DDR3 or DDR4 memory chips, called UniDIMM, was also announced.[16]

Other expected enhancements include Thunderbolt 3.0, SATA Express, Iris Pro graphics with Direct3D feature level 12_1 with up to 128 MB of L4 eDRAM cache on certain SKUs.[17] The Skylake line of processors retires VGA support,[18] while supporting up to five monitors connected via HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2 or Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) interfaces.[19] HDMI 2.0 (4K@60 Hz) is only supported on motherboards equipped with Intel’s Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt controller.[20]

Instruction set enhancements are also expected as with most microarchitecture releases; the Skylake instruction set changes include Intel MPX (Memory Protection Extensions) and Intel ADX (Multi-Precision Add-Carry Instruction Extensions). The Xeon variant will also have Advanced Vector Extensions 3.2 ("AVX-512F").[2][3]

Intel also announced that the Skylake-based laptops will be using wireless technology called Rezence for charging, and other wireless technologies for communication with peripherals. All major PC vendors have agreed to use this technology in Skylake-based laptops, which should be released by the end of 2015.[21]

Integrated GPU of the Skylake's S variant will support DirectX 12 Feature Level 12_1, OpenGL 4.4 and OpenCL 2.0 standards, as well as some modern hardware video encoding/decoding formats such as VP9, VP8 and HEVC.[22]

Intel will release unlocked (capable of overclocking) mobile Skylake CPUs for the first time ever.[23]

Architecture

Configurations

Skylake processors will be produced in four main families: Y, U, H and S. Multiple configurations will be available within each family:[13]

  • Integrated L4 cache will be available with various Skylake-U, H and S configurations.
  • The S variant is intended to be the main socketable desktop Skylake, and will have configurable thermal design power (cTDP); this allows certain Skylake chips to switch their operation between 35 W and 95 W modes.
  • A high-performance 95 W TDP Skylake-S chip will be available, but only without the L4 cache.
  • Y, U and H chips are intended for mobile or embedded systems that require lower power consumption.
  • Y and U variants will support only low-power DDR3 SDRAM, while DDR4 SDRAM will also be supported by H and S variants.

As of May 2015, more Skylake processors have appeared in available Intel roadmaps.[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]

Announcement

In September 2014, Intel announced Skylake microarchitecture at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. Intel announced that volume shipments of Skylake CPUs are scheduled for the second half of 2015. Also, Skylake development platform is announced to be available in H1 2015. During the announcement, Intel also demonstrated two computers with desktop and mobile Skylake prototypes; the first one was a testbed system, running the latest version of 3DMark, while the second computer was a laptop, playing 4K video.[40]

Release timing

An unusual feature of Skylake's release timing is that it follows very closely on the release of its predecessor, Broadwell, which had suffered from launch delays.[41] Intel acknowledged in 2014 that moving from 22 nm (Haswell) to 14 nm (Broadwell) had been its most difficult process to develop yet, causing Broadwell's planned launch to slip by several months;[42] yet, the 14 nm production was back on track and in full production as of Q3 2014.[43] Industry observers had initially believed that the issues impacting Broadwell would also cause Skylake to slip to 2016, but newer information suggests that Intel would seek to recover from these delays by bringing forward Skylake's release and shortening Broadwell's release cycle instead.[8][44]

Accordingly, it is believed that Broadwell will have an unusually short run, although unlocked multiplier versions of Broadwell ("K" SKUs) are still expected to be released in parallel with Skylake in 2015 (But this never happened).[8][45] (Extreme or unlocked versions of a number of Ivy Bridge and Haswell variants had previously also been released with staged timing and in parallel with their successors' initial release.)

List of Skylake-S processors

Two desktop processors were released by Intel at Gamescom on August 5, 2015.[46]

The remaining desktop processors will be released toward the end of the month at the Intel Developer Forum, with laptop and tablet CPUs coming in Q3 2015.[47]

List of announced desktop processors:

Target
segment 		Cores
(Threads) 		Processor
Branding & Model 		GPU model CPU Clock rate Graphics Clock rate L3
Cache 		TDP Release
Date 		Release
price
(USD) 		Motherboard
Normal Turbo Normal Turbo Socket Interface Memory
Performance 4 (8) Core i7 6700K HD Graphics 530 4.0 GHz 4.2 GHz 350 MHz 1150 MHz [48] 8MB 91 W [49] 5 August 2015 $350 LGA
1151 		DMI 3.0
PCIe 3.0 		Dual channel
DDR3L-1600 or
DDR4-2133 (non-ECC)
Mainstream 4 (4) Core i5 6600K 3.5 GHz 3.9 GHz 6MB $242[46]
6600 [50] 3.3 GHz ? 65 W 31 August 2015 ~$230

List of Skylake-U processors

Model Clockfreq Turbo Cores / Threads GPU TDP
Core i7 6500U 2.5 GHz 3.1 GHz 2 / 4 HD Graphics 520 15 watt
Core i5 6200U 2.3 GHz 2.8 GHz 2 / 4 HD Graphics 520 15 watt
Core i3 6100U 2.3 GHz N/A 2 / 4 HD Graphics 520 15 watt
Pentium 4405U 2.1 GHz N/A 2 / 4 HD Graphics 520 15 watt
Celeron 3955U 2.0 GHz N/A 2 / 2 HD Graphics 520 15 watt
Celeron 3855U 1.6 GHz N/A 2 / 2 HD Graphics 520 15 watt

With vPro

Model Clockfreq Turbo Cores / Threads GPU TDP
Core i7 6600U 2.6 GHz 3.4 GHz 2 / 4 HD Graphics 520 15 watt
Core i5 6300U 2.4 GHz 3.0 GHz 2 / 4 HD Graphics 520 15 watt

[51]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Intel to Debut its Core "Skylake" Processors at Gamescom 2015". TechPowerUp.
  2. ^ a b c "AVX-512 SIMD enabled only on Xeon models of SkyLake". Bits and Chips.
  3. ^ a b "Skylake processors for the PC will not support the AVX-512". Hardware-Boom - Hardware News, Tests and Reviews.
  4. ^ http://ark.intel.com/products/88195/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ^ "Intel Unleashes Next-Gen Enthusiast Desktop PC Platform at Gamescom". Intel Newsroom. Retrieved 2015-08-05.
  6. ^ Demerjian, Charlie. "After Intel's Haswell comes Broadwell". Semiaccurate.com. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  7. ^ "Intel Presentation: 22nm Details" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  8. ^ a b c "Intel's 14nm puzzle: As Skylake details leak, everybody asks – is the chip coming in 2015 or not? - ExtremeTech". ExtremeTech. July 14, 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  9. ^ "Intel Unleashes Next-Gen Enthusiast Desktop PC Platform at Gamescom - Technology@Intel". Technology@Intel. Retrieved 2015-08-05.
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  13. ^ a b c Pirzada, Syed Muhammad Usman (27 June 2014). "Massive Intel 14nm Skylake Leak – Multiple eDRAM Configurations and Desktop Variant to have Configurable TDP". WCCFTech. WCCFTech Prvt. Ltd. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
  14. ^ "Intel Core "Skylake" CPUs Accompanied by 100-series Chipset". techPowerUp. Retrieved 2014-05-08.
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  20. ^ Cutress, Ian. "Intel Skylake Z170 Motherboards: A Quick Look at 55+ New Products". Retrieved 2015-08-06.
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  46. ^ a b Dan Snyder (2015-08-05). "Intel Unleashes Next-Gen Enthusiast Desktop PC Platform at Gamescom". Cite error: The named reference "Ivy Bridge-E processors to start at $350" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
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  48. ^ Ian Cutress (2015-08-05). "The Intel 6th Gen Skylake Review: Core i7-6700K and i5-6600K Tested".
  49. ^ Intel (2015-08-05). "Intel® Core™ i5-6600K Processor".
  50. ^ Newegg Inc. (2015-08-12). "Intel Core i5-6600 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.3GHz LGA 1151 65W BX80662I56600 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530 - Newegg.ca".
  51. ^ http://www.fanlesstech.com/2015/08/exclusive-skylake-u-lineup.html
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