Intel patent teases Adamantine L4 cache
A patent filed by Intel has revealed more details about the Level 4 (L4) cache on its upcoming 14th-generation processors.
VideoCardz recently spotted the patent on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website, in which Intel refers to the cache under the codename “Adamantine”.
Adamantine is an adjective describing something unbreakable. Its name comes from a fabled metal in Greek mythology with the same name.
The fictional metal alloy Adamantium, used to augment Marvel superhero Wolverine’s skeleton and retractable claws, was also derived from the term.
The patent reveals that at least some of Intel’s 14th-generation processors — also referred to as the “Meteor Lake” generation — will boast on-package caches.
The hybrid architecture of Meteor Lake will consist of five tiles — CPU, SoC, GPU, I/O and base.
The on-package caches will form part of the chip’s base tile, allowing for fast access by any system-on-chip (SoC) building blocks.
The patent said the Adamantine cache would offer substantially faster access time between various parts of the chip than Level 3 (L3) cache, which usually forms part of the CPU tile.
While the L4 cache looks like Intel’s answer to AMD’s 3D V-Cache, it also promises improvements over and above a general performance boost — such as boot optimisation and increased security for the host CPU.
Intel previously used L4 cache on the eDRAM for processors from Haswell (2013) through Coffee Lake (2017).
However, as Tom’s Hardware explained, that implementation proved too slow to offer real performance benefits.
Lower-level caches are larger, increasing the likelihood of a cache hit. For this to improve, the physical placement of the L4 cache will be a critical factor.
Intel’s Meteor Lake processors are expected to launch in the second half of 2023.
It is currently expected to be limited to mobile devices — like Ice Lake and Tiger Lake — although some reports suggest the company could also refresh its Raptor Lake desktop line-up.
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