Intel Confirms Ocean Cove Next-Gen CPU Architecture Is In Development Via Job Listing

Companies like Intel deal with the reality that many of their plans are going to get leaked, but sometimes, a company itself can be responsible for a leak, highlighting just how loose top-secret information can sometimes be. What we didn't know a few days ago but do now is that a future Intel processor microarchitecture will almost assuredly called 'Ocean Cove'.

The microarchitecture name was dropped in a job listing seeking out a senior CPU microarchitect, though since the original posting, Intel overhauled the entire intro, making sure to remove the mention. The internet never forgets, however, though since an actual Ocean Cove product is likely to be half a decade out, you may have a hard time retaining the name in memory for that period of time.

This job listing and codename come at an interesting time, since Intel hired legendary chip designer Jim Keller just the other day. Keller has worked on such architectures as AMD's K8 and Zen, as well on Apple's A4 and A5 chips. We'd have to imagine that Keller will now be getting his hands wet in Ocean Cove. He of course joins AMD's former head of Radeon Raja Koduri, marking two notable AMD engineers who now work for the AMD's biggest competitor. Intel obviously really means business, and we can't help but feel like AMD has had a bit of a hand in giving the company some of that much-needed CPU engineering ambition.

It's difficult to speculate Intel's future plans right now, or what Ocean Cove could bring to the table, because the company's current 10nm efforts haven't gone exactly according to plan. We were originally expecting to see 10nm chips released late 2017, with a mainstream rollout to follow after. Instead, we're going to see chips released to full manufacturing next year - a real setback for the company that's now facing a fierce and refreshed AMD CPU architecture that offers a lot of bang for the buck.