Intel Kills Off One of Its Most Promising Chip Designs

Intel is backtracking on one of its most promising designs, with CEO Pat Gelsinger saying Lunar Lake was a “one-off” that the company has no intention of repeating.

Lunar Lake was a break from Intel’s traditional designs in the way it handled RAM. Rather than being a separate component, Lunar Lake integrated the memory directly on the processor, much like Apple’s M-series chips. In exchange for no ability to upgrade the RAM post-purchase, Lunar Lake offered significant performance and battery savings boosts.

Unfortunately, users hoping that Lunar Lake would become the default path for Intel moving forward are in for a disappointment. According to comments by Gelsinger at the Q3 2024 earnings call, via VideoCardz, Lunar Lake proved too expensive for the company to continue down that path.

That’s at a volume product and a volume industry like the PC industry, you don’t want to have volume memory going through that channel [memory on package]. It’s not a good way to run the business. So it really is, for us, a one-off with Lunar Lake. That will not be the case with Panther Lake, Nova Lake and its successors as well. We’ll build it in a more traditional way iwth memory off package in the CPU, GPU, NPU and I/O capabilities in the package. But volume memory will be off package in the roadmap going forward.

Unfortunately, it seems Lunar Lake’s advances aren’t the only thing Intel may be abandoning. Gelsinger went on to indicate that the company’s discrete graphics cards may also be on the chopping block.

Similarly, in the client product area, simplifying the roadmap, fewer SKUs to cover it. How are we handling graphics and how that is increasingly becoming a large integrated graphics capabilities. So less need for discrete graphics in the market going forward.

The news is sure to disappoint many users. Intel has struggled to compete with Apple M-series, as well as other Arm-based chips, in terms of energy efficiency. Lunar Lake was an important step forward, only for Intel to now be taking two steps back.

The issue is the latest in a long line of challenges Intel is facing as Gelsinger struggles to turn the company around. The situation has become dire enough that lawmakers are reportedly considering more bailout options for the troubled chipmaker.

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