What is Amber Lake Processor? (Explained)

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What is Amber Lake Processor

What is Amber Lake Processor?

The Amber Lake processors refer to the Intel CPUs typically built on the 3rd generation improved 14 nm manufacturing process and are the successors to Kaby Lake and predecessors of Ice Lake CPUs.

Technically, the architecture of the Amber Lake processors built on the CMOS technology is the mobile version of the Kaby Lake microarchitecture of Intel.

It supports the x86-64 ISA and a word size of 64 bits. The chipset comes packed in a multichip unit.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The Amber Lake processors are the mobile versions of the Kaby Lake microarchitecture, designed and manufactured by Intel.
  • Released in the last quarter of 2018, these dual-core processors are built on the 14 nm fabrication process and have a multichip module chipset.
  • It is typically a dual-core, four-thread processor and the clock rate achieved may range between 1.1 GHz and 15 GHz.
  • The architecture of these processors is so designed that it allows them to be used in mobile devices needing extremely low power.
  • The architecture of Amber Lake supports a 14-stage minimum and a 19-stage maximum pipeline that allows 5-way decoding.

Understanding Amber Lake Processor

What is Amber Lake Processor

The Amber Lake microarchitecture is a creation of Intel, released on August 28, 2018.

This successor to Kaby Lake and predecessor of Ice Lake are intended for use in extremely-low power mobile devices.

These processors typically have a dual-core configuration and have four threads in them to handle almost everything thrown at them.

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Pipeline

Built on the 14 nm manufacturing process, the architecture supports a pipeline with the following features and abilities:

Instruction Set Architecture and Extension Support

The architecture also follows the x86-64 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and the following extensions:

  • MOVBE or Move Data After Swapping Bytes
  • MMX or MultiMedia eXtensions
  • SSE or Streaming SIMD Extensions, along with all its variants such as SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4, SSE4.1, and SSE4.2
  • POPCNT or Population Count
  • AVX or Advanced Vector Extensions, along with AVX2
  • AES or Advanced Encryption Standard
  • CLMUL or Carry-less Multiplication
  • FSGSBASE instructions for FS and GS segment registers
  • RDRAND or Read Random
  • FMA3 or Fused Multiply Add
  • F16C or 16-bit floating point conversion instructions
  • BMI or Bit Manipulation Instructions along with BMI2
  • VT-x and VT-d or Virtualization extensions
  • TXT or Text File extension
  • TSX or Transactional Synchronization Extensions
  • RDSEED or Read Random SEED
  • ADCX or Add-Carry Instruction Extensions
  • PREFETCHW or Prefetch Data into Caches in Anticipation of a Write
  • CLFLUSHOPT or Flush Cache Line Optimized
  • XSAVE or Save Processor Extended States
  • SGX or Software Guard Extensions
  • MPX or Memory Protection Extensions

Cache Memory Hierarchy

The cache memory of the Amber Lake processors is divided into L1, L2, and L3 cache, where the Level 1 cache is divided into two parts, one for the instructions called the L1I cache, and the other for data, called the L1D cache.

The Level 1 instruction and data caches both come with the following features:

  • 32 KiB per core
  • 8-way set associative
Read Also:  What is L1 (Level 1) Cache? Features, Function, Size & More

The Level L2 cache comes with the following features:

  • 256 KiB per core
  • 4-way set associative

The Level 3 cache comes with the following features:

  • 2 MiB per core
  • Up to 16-way set associative

Compiler Support

The cores of the Amber lake processors are however named Whiskey Lake U and support a variety of arch-specific and arch-favorable compilers due to its specific architecture such as:

  • ICC or Intel C Compiler
  • GCC or GNU Compiler Collection
  • LLVM or Low Level Virtual Machine and
  • Visual Studio.

Amber Lake Y

Intel also released a very low-power line of CPUs on Amber Lake Y cores later on. These particular processors are mainly designed to be used in smaller mobile devices such as:

  • Tablets
  • Light notebooks
  • Minis
  • Portable All-in-Ones
  • Conference room
  • 2-in-1 detachable systems
  • Computer sticks

These processors are built on the more advanced 14 nm ++ process from Intel and support a slightly higher CPU clock rate.

The Amber Lake Y processors are also single-chip solutions, and there is a lightweight On-Package Interconnect (OPI) interface that helps in communicating among the separate dies.

This interface supports a 4 GT/s data transfer rate, which, in turn, increases the overall performance.

Common Features

The common features of all of the Amber Lake Y processors are as follows:

  • Dual-channel memory support for up to 16 GiB and up to DDR3L-1600 and LPDDR3-1866
  • Dual core and four threads
  • 10-12x PCIe

Additional Instruction Sets and Technology Support

Apart from the instruction sets mentioned above, the Amber Lake Y processors also support a couple of additional ISAs such as:

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However, not all Amber Lake Y models support the AVX or AVX2 Instruction Set Architectures.

In addition to that, these specific processors also support a few other technologies such as:

Graphics Support

Another significant aspect of these low-power Amber Lake Y processors built with a Ball Grid Array or BGA 1515 socket is that they come with an integrated GT2 graphics processor.

Typically, these specific processors support UHD Graphics 617 and UHD Graphics 615 (Gen 9.5 GT2) with the following features and abilities:

  • Base frequency of 300 MHz
  • Burst frequency ranging between 900 MHz and 1050 MHz
  • Support offered for up to three independent displays.

Conclusion

The Amber Lake processors fall in between Kaby Lake and Ice Lake processors and are contemporary to Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake and Cannon Lake processors.

The architectural design of these processors allows them to offer a significantly higher and better performance in comparison, when used in low-power mobile devices.

About Taylor

AvatarTaylor S. Irwin is a freelance technology writer with in-depth knowledge about computers. She has an understanding of hardware and technology gained through over 10 years of experience.

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