At CES 2026, alongside the announcement of its Core Ultra (3rd Gen) Panther Lake processors, Intel quietly introduced the Core (3rd Gen) Wildcat Lake processor series. Focused on high energy efficiency and miniaturization, this series is expected to replace the older Alder Lake-N models, targeting markets such as low-cost notebooks, mini PCs, NAS, and embedded systems. Wildcat Lake is built on the same architectural foundation as contemporary designs, integrating Cougar Cove performance cores and Darkmont efficiency cores, equipped with Xe 3 architecture integrated graphics and a 5th Gen NPU, delivering up to 18 TOPS of AI computing power. Its CPU configuration features 2P+0E+4LP-E cores, totaling up to 6 cores, with the GPU reduced to 2 Xe cores. It supports LPDDR5X-7467 and DDR5-6400 memory, includes 4MB of L3 cache, and offers expansion and connectivity via 6 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Additionally, it provides 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, 2 USB 3.2 ports, 8 USB 2.0 ports, as well as Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 support.