Silvermont

Silvermont. It is a microarchitecture designed by Intel for low-power applications, representing a significant shift from the earlier Atom designs. First released in 2013, it was manufactured on a 22 nm tri-gate process and targeted markets including mobile devices, embedded systems, and microservers. The design aimed to deliver substantially improved performance-per-watt over its predecessor, Saltwell, while maintaining competitive power efficiency against rival architectures from ARM licensees like Qualcomm and Samsung.

Overview

The development of Silvermont was led by teams at Intel's facilities in Hillsboro and Haifa, marking a major overhaul of the company's low-power processor lineage. It was officially unveiled at the Intel Developer Forum in 2013, with the first products launching later that year. This microarchitecture was foundational for the Bay Trail and Avoton platforms, targeting the Android tablet market and the emerging data center microserver segment, respectively. Its introduction was part of Intel's broader strategy to compete more effectively in markets dominated by ARM-based SoCs from companies like Apple with its A-series and Nvidia with its Tegra line.

Architecture

Silvermont introduced an out-of-order execution engine, a first for Intel's low-power Atom line, which significantly improved instruction-level parallelism. The core featured a 3-wide decode and a 11-stage pipeline, a balance designed for both performance and power efficiency. It supported the x86-64 instruction set along with key extensions like SSE4 and AES-NI, and incorporated a new interconnect architecture allowing for scalable multi-core configurations. The memory subsystem included support for DDR3 and LPDDR3 with ECC, and the design integrated advanced power management states like C6 and S0ix for rapid idle entry and exit.

Process technology

Silvermont was the first Intel microarchitecture to utilize the company's 22 nm tri-gate (FinFET) CMOS process, a technology previously deployed for higher-performance cores like Haswell. This process node provided a major advantage in transistor density and leakage control compared to the 32 nm planar process used for Saltwell. The use of tri-gate transistors was critical to achieving the microarchitecture's target performance within a low TDP envelope, enabling its use in fanless designs for products like the Microsoft Surface tablet line and various Chromebooks from Acer and ASUS.

Products and implementations

Silvermont was implemented in several notable product families. The Bay Trail platform, featuring SoCs like the Atom Z3000 series, was used in a wide array of Windows 8 tablets, Android devices, and entry-level laptops. For the server and networking space, the Avoton platform (Atom C2000 series) targeted microservers and NAS appliances from vendors like HP and Synology. Another variant, Merrifield, was designed for smartphones, while the Rangeley platform addressed communications infrastructure. These implementations were often paired with Intel's integrated GPU designs based on the Gen7 architecture.

Performance and reception

Upon release, Silvermont received positive reviews for its substantial leap in performance and energy efficiency over previous Atom generations. Analysts from AnandTech and Tom's Hardware noted it closed the gap with contemporary ARM cores from Qualcomm's Krait and Apple's A7, particularly in integer performance. Its success in tablets like the Dell Venue series and Lenovo ThinkPad models was acknowledged, though it faced challenges penetrating the entrenched smartphone market dominated by Qualcomm and MediaTek. The Avoton platform was well-received in the microserver segment for offering competitive performance-per-watt, leading to designs from companies like Supermicro and Quanta Computer. Silvermont's architecture directly influenced its successor, Airmont, and the later Goldmont family. Category:Intel microarchitectures Category:2013 in computing