Gracemont (microarchitecture) explained

Gracemont
Produced-Start:	^[1]
Soldby:	Intel
Designfirm:	Intel
Manuf1:	Intel
Pcode1:	Alder Lake (client)
Pcode2:	Raptor Lake (client)
Cores:	4 per module
Slowest:	0.7
Slow-Unit:	GHz
Fastest:	4.3
Fast-Unit:	GHz
L1cache:	96KB per core:
L2cache:	2 or 4MB per module
L3cache:	3MB per module
Arch:	x86-64
Extensions:	MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, FMA3, AVX-VNNI, AES-NI, CLMUL, RDRAND, SHA, TXT, VT-d, VT-x
Predecessor:	Tremont
Successor:	Crestmont

Gracemont is a microarchitecture for low-power processors used in systems on a chip (SoCs) made by Intel, and is the successor to Tremont. Like its predecessor, it is also implemented as low-power cores in a hybrid design of the Alder Lake, Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors.^[2]

Design

Gracemont is the fourth generation out-of-order low-power Atom microarchitecture, built on the Intel 7 manufacturing process.^[3]

The Gracemont microarchitecture has the following enhancements over Tremont:^[4] ^[5]

Level 1 cache per core:
- eight-way-associative 64KB instruction cache
- eight-way-associative 32KB data cache
New On-Demand Instruction Length Decoder
Instruction issue increased to five per clock (from four)
Instruction retire increased to eight per clock (from seven)
Execution ports (functional units) there are now 17 (from eight)
Reorder buffer increased to 256 entries (from 208)
Improved branch prediction
Support for AVX, AVX2, FMA3 and AVX-VNNI instructions^[6]
2 or 4MB shared L2 cache per 4-core cluster^[3] Alder Lake-S/H/P/U family has 2MB. Raptor Lake-S/H/P/U family has 4MB.

Technology

System on a chip (SoC) architecture
3D tri-gate transistors
Thermal design power (TDP)
- 10W desktop processors
- 6W mobile processors

List of Gracemont processors

See main article: Alder Lake and Raptor Lake. The microarchitecture is used as the efficient cores of the 12th generation of Intel Core hybrid processors (codenamed "Alder Lake"), the 13th generation of Intel Core hybrid processors (codenamed "Raptor Lake") and the 14th generation of Intel Core hybrid processors (codenamed "Raptor Lake Refresh"). It's used exclusively in the Alder Lake-N line-up.

Alder Lake-N

Branding	Model	Cores (threads)	Clock rate (GHz)		GPU				Cache		TDP		Release date
			Base	Turbo	Model		Clock rate (GHz)		L2	L3	Base	cTDP Down
			Base	Turbo	Model		Base	Turbo	L2	L3	Base	cTDP Down
Core i3	N305	8 (8)	1.8	3.8	UHD Graphics	32	1.25	2MB	6MB	15W	9W		$309
Core i3	N300	8 (8)	1.1	3.8			7W			rowspan="9"			$309
Intel Processor	N200	4 (4)	0.8	3.7			0.75			6W	$193
	N100		0.8	3.4		24	0.75			6W	$128
	N97		2.0	3.6		24	0.85			1.2	12W		$128
	N95		1.7	3.4		16				1.2	15W
	N50	2 (2)	1.0	3.4		16	0.6			0.75	6W		$128
Atom	x7425E	4 (4)	1.5	3.4		24	0.8			1.0	12W		$58
	x7213E	2 (2)	1.7	3.2		16	0.8				10W		$47
	x7211E	2 (2)	1.0	3.2		16	0.6				6W		$39

Notes and References

Web site: Cutress . Ian . October 27, 2021 . Intel 12th Gen Core Alder Lake for Desktops: Top SKUs Only, Coming November 4th . AnandTech . en-US . September 14, 2022.
Web site: Cutress . Ian . August 14, 2020 . Intel Alder Lake: Confirmed x86 Hybrid with Golden Cove and Gracemont for 2021 . AnandTech . September 14, 2022.
Web site: Cutress . Ian . Frumusanu . Andrei . August 19, 2021 . Intel Architecture Day 2021: Alder Lake, Golden Cove, and Gracemont Detailed . AnandTech . en-US . August 31, 2022.
Web site: Gracemont – Microarchitectures – Intel . WikiChip . en-US . September 14, 2022.
Web site: Cutress . Ian . Frumusanu . Andrei . August 19, 2021 . Intel Architecture Day 2021: Alder Lake, Golden Cove, and Gracemont Detailed . AnandTech . en-US . August 31, 2022.
Web site: Shilov . Anton . October 7, 2020 . Intel's Upcoming Gracemont Microarchitecture to Support AVX, AVX2, and AVX-VNNI . Tom's Hardware . September 14, 2022.