Things have certainly not been easy for Intel and its 18A manufacturing process. However, things are looking up, much up, with the company announcing on its website that its process is ready to accept customer projects. This is good news for the company, which was banking heavily on this process, particularly when it cancelled its 20A process.
Intel’s 18A is ready!
In broad terms, this new process promises a lot on paper. In fact, it boasts performance/watt improvements of 15%, while boasting 30% greater density than the Intel 3 process. But that’s not all, as it offers other features such as a new type of transistor: the RibbonFET.
Of course, the first products to feature this etching will be Panther Lake processors and Xeon Clearwater Forest processors. However, they will not be the only products to use this process, far from it, we hope. At present, it would appear that Amazon is interested, as are Microsoft and Broadcom. Of course, companies are looking for foundries to produce chips for their own installations. What’s more, the first tape outs will be ready in the first half of 2025.
Let’s hope that things continue in this vein, as it would give a second wind to the company, which has been particularly hit hard as of late. In August 2024, following poor financial results, the company’s share price took a hit. This led to the dismissal of Pat Gelsinger, the company’s former CEO.
