(Credit: Intel)
Intel’s 14th generation “Meteor Lake” Core processors won’t arrive until next year. But the company has revealed the upcoming chips will contain a new processing unit called a “VPU.”
The VPU is mentioned in the notes for a new driver Intel engineers added to the open-source Linux kernel last week, which was spotted by Phoronix. “VPU stands for Versatile Processing Unit and it's a CPU-integrated inference accelerator for Computer Vision and Deep Learning applications,” Intel firmware engineer Jacek Lawrynowicz wrote.
This means the VPU is designed for AI-powered programs, which could involve image-editing and multimedia processing. Lawrynowicz adds that the VPU is made up of several components, including a “neural compute subsystem,” which does the heavy-lifting, and a “buttress,” which connects to the Intel chip’s CPU.
The company's Linux driver also notes “Intel VPU for Meteor Lake and newer,” which suggests the processing unit will become a lasting feature for future Intel products.
The most recent Intel chips already include enhancements such as “Deep Learning Boost” and “Gaussian & Neural Accelerator,” which are designed to speed up workloads for certain AI-powered programs involving content creation. So the upcoming VPU processing unit might represent an evolution of Intel’s existing tech. (Back in 2017, the company also announced a Vision Processing Unit, but it was for low-powered chips meant for IoT devices, such as cameras.)
The VPU could also represent Intel’s response to the Neural Engine in Apple’s own M1 and M2 chips for MacBooks, which have received strong reviews. Apple has been marketing the Neural Engine as offering “breakthrough” performance in machine-learning tasks, such as video analysis, voice recognition, and image processing.
Intel didn’t offer any specs for the VPU. But the Meteor Lake chips will use the company’s long-awaited 7-nanometer manufacturing process. The same chips will adopt a tile-based architecture that promises to offer top performance in CPU speeds, AI, and graphics all in a single package.
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