Intel’s Meteor Lake processors, which are 14th Gen Core CPUs, are expected to arrive by the end of the year or early next year. Intel and Microsoft are rumored to be aligning the release of desktop Meteor Lake-S (MTL-S) CPUs around Windows 12. However, there hasn’t been much evidence of MTL-S in terms of leaks, which means we won’t be getting next-gen Windows until at least the middle of next year.
So even though that means we’re still a year away, a new Intel patent has revealed details of a new Level 4 (L4) cache called “Adamantine” or “ADM” (by Phronics), designed to achieve a “Slimmer And Faster Boot”. Intel says they’re seeing an additional 300-350ms reduction in boot times on ChromeOS, though there’s no status on Windows 11 or Windows 12 at this time. This defines the “fast” bit. As for the “slimmer” bit, the use of L4 cache as SRAM is enabling Intel to design firmware with a lighter footprint.
Here are some patent tips regarding faster booting:
[0088] Embodiments using the design requirements described in FIGS. 3 and 4, which provide larger and faster memory available when reconfiguring the firmware flow to use pre-initialized memory but also FSP to ensure safe SoC boot without relying on DRAM resources. Define flow.
[0089] Additionally, faster systems use a multi-threaded environment at the pre-boot stage to achieve boot where security implementations can be run on parallel threads with another independent IO initiation.
[0137] Improve critical boot performance–able to reduce booting time by an additional .300-350 ms on the latest CHROME platform.
[0138] Help design lightweight firmware using L4 cache as SRAM, with FSP for minimal and only key functional blocks (eg, SoC silicon initialization blob) and booting to the OS The bootloader performs the procedure for
The patent is available at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. (USPTO) website (through Video cards). If you recall, Intel did the same with their 5th Gen Broadwell which packed 128MB of eDRAM. However, Broadwell used it for graphics (GT) while the newer Adamantine (L4) is designed for cache processors.
