Intel plans to unveil its new Tiger Lake processors in the middle of this year; the 10nm Tiger Lake CPUs will come in mobile form, although there is no indication that they will appear on desktops. What this CPU will bring, however, is the first real experience of the new Intel Xe graphics architecture.

Intel Xe graphics silicon is the company's great hope against increasing competition in the discrete GPU market from AMD and Nvidia. Yes, it aims to become the third player in the graphics card industry. [The DG1 GPU presented at CES in January was simply a Software Development Vehicle (SDV) and not fit for human consumption. However, Xe GPU silicon is the driving force behind Tiger Lake's integrated pixel pusher, and it is possible that Intel will combine discrete Xe GPUs in at least some thin and light Tiger Lake machines.

Intel CEO Bob 'The Swan' Swan made this announcement during the company's latest earnings call. Spoiler alert: AMD's strong performance with Ryzen has put little pressure on Intel's coffers.

"We will debut our next generation mobile processor, Tiger Lake, in the middle of this year," says El Swanellino.

"Using our second-generation 10nm process, Tiger Lake delivers breakthrough performance, and our customers have over 50 amazing Tiger Lake-based notebook designs ready for the holiday season.

We can play a little game here to spot intentional mistakes. Got it? Yes, it's the "2nd generation 10nm process."

If you're familiar with Intel, the first 10nm process was Cannonlake (or Cannon Lake.) Then Intel updated its troubled 10nm manufacturing process to something less horrible when it released the Ice Lake laptop. But Intel rewrote history and buried Cannonlake under the patio in Santa Clara.

Tiger Lake's advanced 10nm+ process (or 10nm++, depending on how you count) is set to deliver higher performance and improved efficiency.

"There will be 50 designs available this holiday season," Swanster reiterates. Swanster believes that "clock speeds, battery life, and AI built into the core design will be a real differentiator for customers in the thin and light format.

However, this additional performance does not all come from the 10nm+(+) process, as Intel will also feature a new Core architecture, Willow Cove, the successor to the Sunny Cove design introduced with Ice Lake, today's thin and light laptop architecture.

This will probably be helpful given the security vulnerabilities that have arisen in Intel CPUs over the last year or two.

We will also see improved gaming performance from slim Tiger Lake notebooks thanks to integrated Intel Xe (or Gen12) graphics. If the low-power discrete Xe GPU is integrated and can handle multiple GPUs as expected, it could deliver real 1080p gaming performance like the Dell XPS 13.

And that means a new era of thin and light gaming laptops could be upon us by the end of the year.