The chip Intel wanted to hide the most keeps popping up in the oddest places. You may or may not have heard of Cannon Lake, but it was one of Intel's biggest busts. Cannon Lake was Intel's first 10nm processor to ship, arriving after years of delays while the company lost its manufacturing lead to TSMC and AMD, but it didn't actually work — Intel launched the defective chip in China only, effectively hiding it from the skeptical press as it looked to prove some form of life after years of delays, but the Cannon Lake chip came with a de-activated integrated GPU due to issues with the 10nm process. Intel also only released one version of the chip, while all other models were axed, relegating Cannon Lake to a notorious spot at the bottom of the chip industry's trash barrel. Intel's 10nm was broken, and it took multiple redesigns of the node before it became fit for purchase. Hardware enthusiast YuuKi_AnS takes us on a nostalgic trip down memory lane to revisit the 10nm Cannon Lake architecture with a look at a new oddly Pokemon-emblazoned board with the notorious chip.
The memorabilia arrives as a compact motherboard with an integrated Cannon Lake processor. 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.
