Intel might incorporate an upgraded NPU in its Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs for desktop & laptop platforms which will come at a cost.
Intel Could Add An Upgraded NPU In Its Arrow Lake Refresh Desktop & Laptop CPUs
Intel's upcoming high-end Arrow Lake CPUs such as the "S" Desktop and "HX" laptop lineup will launch without any dedicated NPU hardware onboard. The NPUs will be limited to Intel Arrow Lake-H/U and Lunar Lake chips with the Core Ultra 200V chips offering up to 48 TOPs that almost match the 50 AI TOPS offered by AMD's Strix APUs. These will come in the form of a new unit called NPU4 which we detailed here.
Currently, AMD is the only chipmaker that offers a desktop chip with a dedicated NPU in the form of Ryzen 8000G "Hawk Point" chips for the AM5 platform but that might change soon. According to @jaykihn, who has been very active with Intel-related leaks, Intel is planning to incorporate a dedicated and upgraded NPU within its desktop and high-end laptop line of chips under the Arrow Lake-S and Arrow Lake-HX platforms. The leaker states that this NPU will be an upgraded version from the one featured on the upcoming Arrow Lake-S and HX chips which suggests that we might also get some sort of NPU / AI accelerators on them too.
Arrow Lake Refresh, if carried out, will see an upgraded NPU on the SOC tile at a 2.8mm longer die than Arrow Lake. HX and S, same package size.
The mobo compatibility will depend on whether Fast Voltage Mode (FVM) is enabled on the VccSA rail, which depends on board vendors.
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) July 3, 2024
Arrow Lake non-refresh will also have an NPU.
I’m not sure where that rumor is sourced from, but it isn’t correct.
My previous tweet regarding the NPU stated “upgraded”, as in upgraded from the previous Arrow Lake non-refresh NPU.
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) July 5, 2024
The information states that Intel could be preparing a refresh of its Arrow Lake CPUs which might incorporate an NPU within the SOC tile. The SOC tile is generally the largest tile featured on Intel's latest CPUs such as Meteor Lake chips. It is reported that with the added NPU, the Intel Arrow Lake CPUs could see a larger die size, expanding by 2.8mm compared to current-gen Arrow Lake chips.
This dedicated NPU will come in Arrow Lake-S and Arrow Lake-HX refresh CPUs from Intel & while the die size will be larger than the upcoming iteration of Arrow Lake chips, the package size will be the same. So the chips won't require major socket changes (BGA and LGA). They will retain the compatibility but motherboard vendors will have to enable Fast Voltage Mode (FVM) on the VccSA rails. So it will be entirely up to the motherboard vendors to enable support for the NPU on their products but given the hype surrounding the "AI PC" segment, motherboard makers will probably try to capitalize from it.
Overall, it will be interesting to see what Intel brings to the table with its NPU-boosted desktop & laptop chips. It's too early to talk about an Arrow Lake refresh considering the first-gen Arrow Lake CPUs are yet to launch but it looks like we will have to wait a bit for Panther Lake if the company indeed wants to do a refresh of its first-gen Core Ultra CPUs for desktops in 2025.
