Intel's next generation Core Ultra 300-series "Nova Lake-HX" enthusiast mobile processor is expected to debut a new BGA package, the BGA2540. This was sniffed out from shipping manifests of prototype boards of the processor. Although not socketed, mobile processors tend to carry forward package sizes and pin maps across generations, to simplify notebook mainboard and cooling solution designs for OEMs. Over the past several generations, the enthusiast notebook segment of mobile processors from Intel, designated by "-HX" in the codename, have meant notebook-friendly BGA variants of the maxed out "-S" segment silicon, with the highest core counts on the by the company in the client segment.

We've known from older reports that the maxed out desktop "Nova Lake-S" sees a significant increase in core counts, with a core configuration of 16 P-cores, 32 E-cores, and 4 low power island E-cores, a 3-tiered hybrid processor topology similar to "Meteor Lake." Intel is looking to at processor base power values as high as 150 W for its top Core Ultra 9 K-series SKUs. It's very likely that this silicon will be carried over with either the same or similar core-count to "Nova Lake-HX," which is why Intel is needing a larger package for mobile. The desktop "Nova Lake-HX" will require a motherboard change, as the processor is expected to debut the new LGA1954 socket.

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