Intel’s most notable failure pops up on Pokemon-emblazoned motherboard

Depending on when you got into the processor game, you may or may not have heard of Cannon Lake, perhaps one of Intel’s biggest busts. Hardware enthusiast YuuKi_AnS takes us on a nostalgic trip down memory lane to revisit the 10nm Cannon Lake architecture.

The memorabilia arrives as a compact motherboard with an integrated Cannon Lake processor. The engineering sample, potentially hailing from Lenovo, sports the Core M3-8114Y, a Cannon Lake-Y chip with a dual-core configuration with Hyper-Threading. The Core M3-8114Y is one of two known Cannon Lake processors that Intel developed. The other is the Core i3-8121U, which has a similar design but higher clock speeds. However, Intel only lists the Core i3-8121U on its website, disavowing the existence of the Core M3-8114Y.

In addition to the Core M3-8114Y, the motherboard houses 8GB of Samsung LPDDR4-3733 memory and 128GB of SK hynix eMMC storage. There’s even Wi-Fi 5 connectivity, thanks to the onboard Intel 9560 (codename Jefferson Peak) wireless controller. Even the motherboard is interesting, as there’s a picture of the Pokemon Meowth on the bottom left corner of the PCB. We’ve often seen etchings on AMD and Intel processors, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone engrave a Pokemon on a piece of computer hardware.

Cannon Lake features the BGA1392 package with dimensions of 28 x 16.5mm. The processors typically possess a two-die configuration. The CPU die, which measures 70.52 mm², is the more extensive die, followed by the smaller PCH die, which is 46.17 mm². However, the Core M3-8114Y has a unique design flaunting a third and smaller die. The 13.72 mm² die is suspected to be the McIVR (Multi-Chip Integrated Voltage Regulator) die, whose job was to regular the voltage between the two other dies.

Many obstacles prevented Intel from bringing Cannon Lake to the retail market. The architecture had suffered from one delay after another. There were some laptops with Cannon Lake chips, but they weren’t widely available. Intel also used the Core i3-8121U in a couple of its Crimson Canyon NUCs, which the chipmaker retired in 2019. Having launched in 2018, Cannon Lake was one of Intel’s most ephemeral architectures, even by the company’s standards.