Intel discontinues Ultrabook quad-core

The first quad-core generation for Ultrabooks is history because Intel discontinues Ultrabook quad-core.

Intel has put the processors called Kaby Lake Lake Refresh into EoL status via Product Change Notification. The Ultrabook CPUs were announced in August 2017 and can still be ordered until late summer or autumn 2020 - at the beginning of 2021, Intel will deliver the last batches.

The Kaby Lake Refresh were Intel's first 15-watt chips for ultrabooks, which have four instead of two CPU cores. There were and still are atom-based processors (Gemini Lake) as quad cores, including various Celeron and Pentium, but these are significantly slower per core. Speaking of which: The Kaby Lake Refresh also includes the Celeron 3867U and the Pentium Gold 4417U, but they were released later and therefore continue to run for the time being.

For partners, the quad-core chips were relatively easy to handle, since the Kaby Lake Refresh with four cores was soldered just like the regular Kaby Lake with two cores with the same BGA-1356 socket. Memory support was somewhat more complex, since faster RAM was required with DDR4-2400 and LPDDR3-2133 instead of DDR4-2133 and LPDDR3-1866. The nominal permanent power loss (PL1) of 15 watts is only a guideline anyway, the partners can set the processors between 10 watts and 25 watts.

Specifications of Kaby Lake Refresh

	Cores	Clock	L3 cache	iGPU	Storage	TDP
Core i7-8650U	4 + SMT	1.9 - 4.2 GHz	8 MB	UHD 620 @ 1.15 GHz	LPDDR3-2133 / DDR4-2400	15 watts
Core i7-8550U	4 + SMT	1.8 - 4.0 GHz	8 MB	UHD 620 @ 1.15 GHz	LPDDR3-2133 / DDR4-2400	15 watts
Core i5-8350U	4 + SMT	1.7 - 3.6 GHz	6 MB	UHD 620 @ 1.10 GHz	LPDDR3-2133 / DDR4-2400	15 watts
Core i5-8250U	4 + SMT	1.6-3.4 GHz	6 MB	UHD 620 @ 1.10 GHz	LPDDR3-2133 / DDR4-2400	15 watts

Since the introduction of Kaby Lake Refresh, four cores have been the standard in the Ultrabook segment from Intel: The 14 nm chips were followed by another 14 nm quad-core generation (Whiskey Lake) and there is now also a 14 nm -Hexacore (Comet Lake U). Actually, the portfolio should have been changed to 10 nm long ago, but the first version (Cannon Lake U) never really made it to the market, only the second generation (Ice Lake U) is well available and the third (Tiger Lake U) is said to be with significantly higher clock rates will start in autumn 2020. AMD already offers eight cores in the 15 watt segment, the Ryzen Mobile 4000 alias Renoir.

Overview of core generations (Client Mobile) from Intel

	Example chip	production	CPU cores + graphics	iGPU-µArch	Launch
Arrandale	Core i5-520UM	32 nm	2 + GT2	Gen5.75	2010
Sandy Bridge	Core i5-2537M	32 nm	2 + GT2	Gen6	2011
Ivy Bridge	Core i5-3427U	22 nm	2 + GT2	Gen7	2012
Haswell ULT	Core i5-4300U	22 nm	2 + GT2, 2 + GT3	Gen7.5	2013
Broadwell U	Core i5-5300U	14 nm	2 + GT2, 2 + GT3	Gen8	2014
Skylake U	Core i5-6300U	14 nm	2 + GT2, 2 + GT3e	Gen9	2015
Kaby Lake U	Core i5-7300U	14+ nm	2 + GT2, 2 + GT3e	Gen9.5	2016
Kaby Lake Refresh	Core i5-8350U	14 ++ nm	4 + GT2, 4 + GT3e	Gen9.5	2017
Cannon Lake U	Core i3-8121U	10 nm	2 + GT2 (deactivated)	Gen10	2018
Whiskey Lake U	Core i5-8265U	14 ++ nm	4 + GT2	Gen9.5	2018
Ice Lake U	Core i5-1035 G7	10 nm	2 + GT2, 4 + GT2	Gen11	2019
Comet Lake U	Core i5-10210U	14 ++ nm	2 + GT2, 4 + GT2, 6 + GT2	Gen9.5	2019
Rocket Lake U	Core i5-11xx Gx (?)	14 ++ nm, 10+ nm	4 + GT2, 6 + GT2	Gen12 (Xe)	2020
Tiger Lake U	Core i5-12xx Gx (?)	10+ nm	4 + GT2	Gen12 (Xe)	2020

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