Intel Foundry: 18A-P and 14A technology for the masses

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The schedule for the coming years is set: Intel will start chip production with 18A technology in the second half of the year. This will initially result in Panther Lake processors, also known as Core Ultra 300, for notebooks. The improved version 18A-P will follow in the course of next year and the successor 14A from 2027. Depending on the season in which production starts, corresponding products could be released in the following year.

During the Direct Connect event, Foundry Technical Director Naga Chandrasekaran admitted that 18A is aimed at a small target group. Accordingly, 18A is designed exclusively for high-performance computing – by which chip manufacturers typically mean processors in the notebook class and above.

18A is followed by 18A-P

Even a single production process can be designed for several applications. Chip manufacturers typically offer various design libraries with different cell blocks that can be optimized for high clock frequencies, packing density, low leakage currents or other parameters.

One optimization option is the current channels in the new gate all-around transistors (GAAFETs). Several such channels (sheets) in a transistor increase the current flow and therefore the switching speed or clock frequency. If a manufacturer limits itself to one or two channels, this reduces leakage currents and potentially improves efficiency. The performance cores in today's processors are typically created with high-performance libraries and efficiency cores with area-optimized cell blocks.

Apparently, 18A will initially only have a single library designed for fast-switching transistors. The production process will initially be used in Panther Lake and the Clearwater Forest server processors. They are intended to prove that Intel's technology can compete with TSMC.

A total of five products with 18A technology are said to be in pre-series production, including those from external customers. So-called engineering samples have already been sent out and qualification samples are to follow soon. The latter are used for final product validation.

The optimized 18A-P variant is to follow a year later. Intel nominally states an eight percent higher performance with the same electrical power consumption compared to 18A. Allegedly, 18A-P will also bring further design libraries. Larger supported voltage ranges were explicitly mentioned.

14A with High-NA-EUV option and PowerDirect

A genuinely new production process is expected to be introduced in 2027: 14A, which, unlike 18A-P, will also shrink the transistors again. The packing density increases by 30 percent. In addition, performance will increase by 15 to 20 percent compared to 18A; alternatively, electrical power consumption will fall by 25 to 35 percent with the same performance. If you offset the figures, performance should increase by around 11 percent compared to 18A-P.

14A brings several innovations with it. In addition to further developed GAAFETs, called RibbonFETs by Intel, the backside transistor power supply (Backside Power Delivery) is making progress. Intel calls this PowerDirect instead of PowerVia. The transistors are then probably plated through directly from below to the power supply, as TSMC does with its Super Power Rail. In the case of PowerVia, the power supply comes from below, but is connected to the side of the transistor.

According to the current plan, Intel intends to use its new lithography systems with high numerical aperture and extreme ultraviolet exposure technology (High-NA EUV) for the first time with 14A. However, Head of Technology Chandrasekaran emphasized that the use of the previous normal systems (low-NA EUV) would still be possible. The finest chip layers would then have to be exposed several times (multi-patterning). Ultimately, the most economically viable variant should be used.

A presentation slide mentions three libraries and a wide voltage range. It is quite possible that Intel is increasingly targeting the smartphone market with 14A, with Apple and Qualcomm from the USA as potential customers.

Design tools should finally get better

Inte paid particular attention to one topic during the Direct Connect presentation: the ecosystem surrounding the design of chips. The heads of Synopsis, Cadence and Siemens EDA had their say. They develop the industry-standard tools for Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and provide standard function blocks as Intellectual Property (IP), for example for memory controllers or PCI Express interfaces. Chip developers click together the desired blocks in the EDA tools and turn them into a processor. Without the support of the big three, a chip contract manufacturer has no chance on the market.

Such design tools were previously a problem for Intel, as the processes were designed exclusively for its own processor development for many years. For external customers, development was complex and opaque. This is one of the main reasons why Intel Foundry's customers have so far mainly been Intel's CPU divisions.

Chandrasekaran emphasized that the "silicon data" for upcoming process design kits should be "healthier" and more in line with the industry standard. Intel hopes that this will lead to better solutions. Overall, costs should fall and reliability should increase.

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