Intel just announced their first line of 10nm processors, Ice Lake-U. The die they’re based on contains 4 CPU cores, 64 GPU execution units and new supporting logic such Thunderbolt 3, Wi-Fi 6 and LPDDR4X memory controllers, larger caches and new video and image processors.

In this analysis we look at the size of the overall Ice Lake-U chip, that of the CPU and the GPU. Smaller sizes ensure that more chips fit on a wafer and therefore more can be sold. If there is a lot of space invested in a component, it is important for Intel to score well on it.

Die size

Based on the wafer image Intel released as part of their Ice Lake press release, I tried to calculate the die size. Horizontally, their are ~27,2 dies on the wafer, and vertically ~25,4. This results of dimensions of ~11,0 mm and ~11,8 mm, if the unrounded values are multiplied ~130 mm2.

| | ICL 4+2 | CFL 4+2 | CFL 6+2 | CFL 8+2 | CFL 4+3e |

|-----------|:-------:|:-------:|:-------:|:-------:|:--------:|

| CPU cores | 4 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 4 |

| GPU EUs | 64 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 48 |

| Process | 10nm | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm |

| Die size | 130mm2 | 126mm2 | 150mm2 | 174mm2 | ? |

If someone has a source for the die size of the CFL 4+3e chip (the one with Iris Plus 655), please let me know!