The processors of the Alder Lake-N series are called Intel N100, N200, Core i3-N300 and Core i3-N305, among others. They only have Gracemont-type efficiency cores (E-Cores), i.e. unlike “real” Core i processors from the Core i-12000 (Alder Lake) and Core i-13000 (Raptor Lake) series, they have no performance cores (P- cores).
There are also Atom versions of these Alder Lake N chips for embedded systems: The Atom x7425E with four cores and 12 watts TDP and the two-core Atom x7211E and x7213E with 6 and 10 watts TDP, respectively.
The companies Aaeon (UP Squared Pro 7000), Avnet Embedded (MSC C6C-ALN), Seco (Finlay) and TQ-Systems (TQMxE41S) have already announced boards with the Atom X7000E. At Avnet, Seco and TQ, these are pluggable computing modules in COM Express Type 6 or SMARC 2.1 formats.
Atom advantages
The Alder Lake N processors control DDR4, DDR5 or LPDDR5 memory, the latter only being soldered on. Like their “Elkhart Lake” predecessors, the Atom versions also master in-band ECC, so they can use part of the DRAM for redundant information to correct some bit errors.
The Alder Lake N processors each consist of two dies: the chip from Intel 7 production with the CPU cores, GPU and PCIe Root Complex as well as a separate chipset die (PCH for Platform Controller Hub). The PCH die of the Atom versions contains a 2.5 Gbit/s Ethernet controller with special functions such as Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and Intel Time Coordinated Computing (TCC).
The Atom x7000E apparently no longer has the built-in ARM Cortex-A7 core of the predecessor, known as the Programmable Services Engine (PSE).
The Atom x7000E is not suitable for Windows 11; Apart from Linux, Intel only releases Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 for these processors. This is also the case with the predecessor Atom x6000E (Elkhart Lake). Windows 11 drivers are available for the closely related N100/200/N300.
Intel CPU series Alder Lake-N (Gracemont cores, Intel 7)
processor
CPU cores
turbo clock
cache
TDP
Intel Core i3-N305
8th
3.8GHz
6 MB
15 watts
Intel Core i3-N300
8th
3.8GHz
6 MB
7 watts
Intel N200
4
3.7GHz
6 MB
6 watts
Intel N100
4
3.4GHz
6 MB
6 watts
Intel N97
4
3.6GHz
6 MB
12 watts
Intel N50
2
3.4GHz
6 MB
6 watts
Intel Atom x7425E
4
3.4GHz
6 MB
12 watts
Intel Atom x7213E
2
3.2GHz
6 MB
10 watts
Intel Atom x7211E
2
3.2GHz
6 MB
6 watts
| Intel CPU series Alder Lake-N (Gracemont cores, Intel 7) | ||||
|
processor |
CPU cores |
turbo clock |
cache |
TDP |
|
Intel Core i3-N305 |
8th |
3.8GHz |
6 MB |
15 watts |
|
Intel Core i3-N300 |
8th |
3.8GHz |
6 MB |
7 watts |
|
Intel N200 |
4 |
3.7GHz |
6 MB |
6 watts |
|
Intel N100 |
4 |
3.4GHz |
6 MB |
6 watts |
|
Intel N97 |
4 |
3.6GHz |
6 MB |
12 watts |
|
Intel N50 |
2 |
3.4GHz |
6 MB |
6 watts |
|
Intel Atom x7425E |
4 |
3.4GHz |
6 MB |
12 watts |
|
Intel Atom x7213E |
2 |
3.2GHz |
6 MB |
10 watts |
|
Intel Atom x7211E |
2 |
3.2GHz |
6 MB |
6 watts |
Alder Lake slimmed down
Intel announced the Alder Lake-N series at CES; N100 and N200 are said to be in Chromebooks like that Acer Spin 511 (C736-TCO-C7TQ) to run. With the Cubi N ADL, MSI has announced a mini PC in NUC format with an Intel N100 or N200, and Asus the fanless ExpertCenter PN42.
For boards and modules that are as cheap as possible, Intel also has the two-core Intel N50 on offer; the Intel N97, on the other hand, is a higher clocked version of the N100 with a TDP of 12 instead of 6 watts.
(ciw)
