Ivy Bridge

Ivy Bridge is the codename for a line of processors based on the 22 nm manufacturing process developed by Intel. The name is also applied more broadly to the 22 nm die shrink of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture based on FinFET ("3D") tri-gate transistors, which is also used in the Xeon and Core i7 Ivy Bridge-EX (Ivytown), Ivy Bridge-EP and Ivy Bridge-E microprocessors released in 2013.

Ivy Bridge processors are backwards compatible with the Sandy Bridge platform, but such systems might require a firmware update (vendor specific).In 2011, Intel released the 7-series Panther Point chipsets with integrated USB 3.0 to complement Ivy Bridge.[2]

Volume production of Ivy Bridge chips began in the third quarter of 2011.Quad-core and dual-core-mobile models launched on April 29, 2012 and May 31, 2012 respectively.Core i3 desktop processors, as well as the first 22 nm Pentium, were announced and available the first week of September, 2012.

Overview

The Ivy Bridge CPU microarchitecture is a shrink from Sandy Bridge and remains largely unchanged.

Notable improvements include:

*22 nm Tri-gate transistor ("3-D") technology (up to 50% less power consumption at the same performance  level as 2-D planar transistors).
*A new random number generator and the RdRand instruction,codenamed Bull Mountain

Ivy Bridge features and performance

*F16C (16-bit Floating-point conversion instructions).
*RdRand instruction (Intel Secure Key).
*PCI Express 3.0 support (not on Core i3 and ULV processors).
*Max CPU multiplier of 63 (57 for Sandy Bridge).
*RAM support up to 2800 MT/s in 200 MHz increments.
*The built-in GPU has 6 or 16 execution units (EUs), compared to Sandy Bridge's 6 or 12.
*Intel HD Graphics with DirectX 11, OpenGL 3.1, and OpenCL 1.1 support.OpenGL 4.0 is supported *with 9.18.10.3071 WHQL drivers[15] and later drivers.
*DDR3L and Configurable TDP (cTDP) for mobile processors.
*Multiple 4K video playback.
*Intel Quick Sync Video version 2.
*Up to three displays are supported (with some limitations: with chipset of 7-series and using two of them with DisplayPort or eDP).
*A 14- to 19-stage instruction pipeline, depending on the micro-operation cache hit or miss.

Translation lookaside buffer sizes

Cache		Page Size
Name	Level	4 KB	2 MB	1 GB
DTLB	1st	64	32	4
ITLB	1st	128	8 / logical core	none
STLB	2nd	512	none	none

Benchmark comparisons

Compared to Sandy Bridge:
*3% to 5% increase in CPU performance when compared clock for clock.
*25% to 68% increase in integrated GPU performance.

Thermal performance and heat issues

Ivy Bridge's temperatures are reportedly 10°C higher compared to Sandy Bridge when overclocked, even at default voltage setting.[24] Impress PC Watch, a Japanese website, performed experiments that confirmed earlier speculations that this is because Intel used a poor quality (and perhaps lower cost) thermal interface material (thermal paste, or "TIM") between the chip and the heat spreader, instead of the fluxless solder of previous generations.The mobile Ivy Bridge processors are not affected by this issue because they do not use a heat spreader between the chip and cooling system.

Enthusiast reports describe the TIM used by Intel as low-quality,and not up to par for a "premium" CPU, with some speculation that this is by design to encourage sales of prior processors.[25] Further analyses caution that the processor can be damaged or void its warranty if home users attempt to remedy the matter.[25][28] The TIM has much lower thermal conductivity, causing heat to trap on the die.[24] Experiments replacing this with a higher quality TIM or other heat removal methods showed a substantial temperature drop, and improvements to the voltages and clocking sustainable by Ivy Bridge chips.

Intel claims that the smaller die of Ivy Bridge and the related increase in thermal density is expected to result in higher temperatures when the CPU is overclocked; Intel also stated that this is as expected and will likely not improve in future revisions.

Ivy Bridge-E features

Ivy Bridge-E is the follow-up to Sandy Bridge-E, using the same CPU core as the Ivy Bridge processor, but in an LGA 2011 or LGA 1356 package for workstations and servers.

    *New RAS features for Ivybridge-EX
    *Dual-Memory Controller for Ivybridge-EP
    *No integrated GPU
    *Up to 15 CPU cores
    *Up to 37.5 MB L3 cache.
    *Thermal design power between 60 W and 155 W
    *Support for up to 8 DIMMS of DDR3-1866 memory per socket

Server processors

Additional high-end server processors based on the Ivy Bridge architecture, code named Ivytown, were announced September 10, 2013 at the Intel Developer Forum, after the usual one year interval between consumer and server product releases.The Ivy Bridge-EP processor line announced in September 2013 has up to 12 cores and 30 MB third level cache, with rumors of Ivy Bridge-EX up to 15 cores and an increased third level cache of up to 37.5 MB,although an early leaked lineup of Ivy Bridge-E included processors with a maximum of 6 cores.Both Core-i7 and Xeon versions are produced: the Xeon versions marketed as Xeon E5-2600 V2 act as drop-in replacements for the existing Sandy Bridge-EN and Sandy Bridge-EP based Xeon E5, and Core-i7 versions designated i7-4820K, i7-4930K, i7-4960X were released on September 10, 2013 remained compatible with X79 and LGA2011 hardware

Roadmap

Intel demonstrated the Haswell architecture in September 2011, which began release in 2013 as the successor to Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge.