At IFA 2014 in Berlin, Intel has finally taken the wraps off its first three 14nm Broadwell-based Core M processors, filling in most of the remaining gaps. We now know the base and turbo frequencies for Broadwell-Y, the TDPs of the first Core M chips (yes, Intel has moved away from SDP), and the other changes and tweaks that will allow for fanless Broadwell-powered tablets and two-in-one laptops that are just 8mm thick. Oh, we also have some cool photos that show you just how small the Core M chips are, too.

At its keynote at IFA, Intel announced eight Core M-powered devices (all laptops or 2-in-1 designs, I think) that will be launched later this year — hopefully just in time for Christmas. In theory, Core M chips are small enough and low-power enough to be squeezed into tablets, but it seems no OEMs have announced any yet. Probably because Core M is still very much a performance part with a high price tag, and tablets are mostly all about bang-for-your-buck (see: the $120 Windows 8.1 tablet). There is still no word on when exactly the desktop-oriented 14nm Broadwell parts are coming (fifth-gen Core i3/i5/i7, Broadwell U), but they should be “in volume production before year end” and on the market by “early 2015.”

To begin with, there are three members of the new Core M family: the 5Y70, 5Y10, and 5Y10a. With a new family (Core M as opposed to Core i) comes a new, rather nasty-looking numbering scheme. The “5” roughly refers to the fact that it’s similar to a Core i5 (i.e. dual-core with Hyper-Threading). “Y” is the chip type (Broadwell-Y), and the number at the end is the chip’s relative position. The “a” is an odd one, but it seems to refer to the fact that the chip can be configured down to 4W TDP.

All three chips are the same part, just binned differently. They all dual-core parts with Hyper-Threading, have a TDP of just 4.5W, and Intel HD 5300 graphics. (Intel isn’t speaking much about the graphics yet, but internal numbers suggest it’s another big step up.) The 5Y70 is clocked much higher than the other SKUs, and has access to two enterprise-level features: Intel vPro and TXT. I suspect it’s the standard Core M-5Y10 that you’ll find in most of the upcoming laptops and two-in-ones.

When we attended the Core M briefing a couple of weeks ago, the key takeaway that Intel tried to hammer home was that Broadwell-Y is a very efficient chip. It is the first performance part from Intel that can be safely used in fanless designs that are less than 9mm thick. In the closest comparison possible (the Broadwell Core M-5Y70 vs. the Haswell Core i5-4302Y), the Broadwell-Y part has up to 1.7 hours more battery life, and anywhere between 10-50% higher performance depending on the workload. Most of these improvements/reductions are down to Intel’s 14nm process, but significant tweaks to the GPU and small (~5%) CPU IPC improvements certainly help as well.

With Core M/Broadwell, Intel is also debuting Smart Sound Technology, which is essentially a hardware DSP. This saves a lot of power over emulating a DSP on the CPU. (Yes, this is very similar to AMD’s TrueAudio.) There’s platform support for WiGig docking, and a new 802.11ac interface (AC 7265). When all of the changes are tallied up, Broadwell-Y appears to be a major improvement over Haswell-Y for tablets, two-in-ones, and other thin form factors. The fact that fanless designs are now possible is very exciting indeed.

We’ll have more on Core M and Broadwell when we actually get our hands on some shipping hardware. I should also point out that none of this bodes particularly well for desktop users: Broadwell U, when it eventually turns up, will probably only be a small upgrade over Haswell. For more tech details, read our post on Intel’s 14nm process and Core M’s architecture.

I’ll leave you with some cool photos of the Broadwell-Y chip that I took at the briefing a couple of weeks ago.