Intel has released their first 10 nm 2^nd Gen processor into consumer products – the Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor, better known as Ice Lake. Dell and Microsoft have already announced the inclusion of Ice Lake in some of their latest offerings.

This is Intel’s first processor built on what they are calling Sunny Cove architecture, the features of which include:

• “Enhanced microarchitecture to execute more operations in parallel.
• New algorithms to reduce latency.
• Increased size of key buffers and caches to optimize data-centric workloads.
• Architectural extensions for specific use cases and algorithms. For example, new performance-boosting instructions for cryptography, such as vector AES and SHA-NI, and other critical use cases like compression and decompression.” (quoted from Intel’s website)

Ice Lake is said to increase performance 2x over previous Intel processors built on Intel’s 14 nm process. It is the first Intel processor to include an integrated Gen 11 graphics card (Iris Plus Graphics). Architecturally, changes to FinFET architecture improve raw performance, and contact layout changes have been implemented to address yield issues seen in the previous 10 nm Cannon Lake.