Silvermont

This article is about the Intel microarchitecture. For the home in North Carolina, see Silvermont (Brevard, North Carolina).
Silvermont
Intel Mobile Celeron N2830
General information
LaunchedFrom 2013
Common manufacturer
  • Intel
Architecture and classification
Technology node22 nm
Instructionsx86-16, IA-32, x86-64
Extensions
Physical specifications
Cores
  • 2–8
Products, models, variants
Brand names
History
PredecessorsBonnell
Saltwell
SuccessorsAirmont (die shrink),
Goldmont (new microarchitecture)

Silvermont is a microarchitecture for low-power Atom, Celeron and Pentium branded processors used in systems on a chip (SoCs) made by Intel. Silvermont forms the basis for a total of four SoC families:[1]

  • Merrifield and Moorefield  – consumer SoCs intended for smartphones
  • Bay Trail – consumer SoCs aimed at tablets, hybrid devices, netbooks, nettops, and embedded/automotive systems
  • Avoton – SoCs for micro-servers and storage devices
  • Rangeley – SoCs targeting network and communication infrastructure.

Silvermont is the successor of the Bonnell, using a newer 22 nm process (previously introduced with Ivy Bridge) and a new microarchitecture, replacing Hyper Threading with out-of-order execution.[2]

Silvermont was announced to news media on May 6, 2013, at Intel's headquarters at Santa Clara, California.[3] Intel had repeatedly said the first Bay Trail devices would be available during the Holiday 2013 timeframe, while leaked slides showed that the release window for Bay Trail-T as August 28 – September 13, 2013.[4] Both Avoton and Rangeley were announced as being available in the second half of 2013. The first Merrifield devices were announced in 1H14.[5]

According to the Tick–tock model Airmont is the 14 nm die shrink of Silvermont, launched in early 2015 and first seen in the Atom x7-Z8700 as used in the Microsoft Surface 3.[6] Airmont microarchitecture includes the following SoC families:[7]

  • Braswell  – consumer SoCs aimed at PCs
  • Cherry Trail  – consumer SoCs aimed at tablets.

Silvermont based cores have also been used, modified, in the Knight's Landing iteration of Intel's Xeon Phi HPC chips.

  1. ^ "Intel Launches Low-Power, High-Performance Silvermont Microarchitecture". Intel.com. Retrieved 2013-05-06.
  2. ^ "Deep inside Intel's new ARM killer: Silvermont". The Register. 2013-05-08. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  3. ^ "Intel Launches Low-Power, High-Performance Silvermont Microarchitecture". Newsroom.intel.com. 2013-05-06. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  4. ^ "Intel Bay Trial-T launches August 28 – September 13". guru3d.com. Retrieved 2013-07-04.
  5. ^ "Intel reveals Merrifield processor". engadget.com. Retrieved 2013-06-04.
  6. ^ Joel Hruska (March 31, 2015). "Intel quietly launches 14nm Braswell, Bay Trail's successor". ExtremeTech.
  7. ^ Michael Kan. "Intel plans new 'Braswell' chip for PCs, over 20 Chromebooks". PCWorld. Retrieved 2014-04-08.