Thursday, September 5th 2024
Intel 20A Node Cancelled for Foundry Customers, "Arrow Lake" Mainly Manufactured Externally
Intel has announced the cancellation of its 20A node for Foundry customers, as well as shifting majority of Arrow Lake production to external foundries. The tech giant will instead focus its resources on the more advanced 18A node while relying on external partners for Arrow Lake production, likely tapping TSMC or Samsung for their 2 nm nodes. The decision follows Intel's successful release of the 18A Process Design Kit (PDK) 1.0 in July, which garnered positive feedback from the ecosystem, according to the company. Intel reports that the 18A node is already operational, booting operating systems and yielding well, keeping the company on track for a 2025 launch. This early success has enabled Intel to reallocate engineering resources from 20A to 18A sooner than anticipated. As a result, the "Arrow Lake processor family will be built primarily using external partners and packaged by Intel Foundry".
The 20A node, while now cancelled for Arrow Lake, has played a crucial role in Intel's journey towards 18A. It served as a testbed for new techniques, materials, and transistor architectures essential for advancing Moore's Law. The 20A node successfully integrated both RibbonFET gate-all-around transistor architecture and PowerVia backside power delivery for the first time, providing valuable insights that directly informed the development of 18A. Intel's decision to focus on 18A is also driven by economic factors. With the current 18A defect density already at D0 <0.40, the company sees an opportunity to optimize its engineering investments by transitioning now. However, challenges remain, as evidenced by recent reports of Broadcom's disappointment in the 18A node. Despite these hurdles, Intel remains optimistic about the future of its foundry services and the potential of its advanced manufacturing processes. The coming months will be crucial as the company works to demonstrate the capabilities of its 18A node and secure more partners for its foundry business.
Source:
Intel
The 20A node, while now cancelled for Arrow Lake, has played a crucial role in Intel's journey towards 18A. It served as a testbed for new techniques, materials, and transistor architectures essential for advancing Moore's Law. The 20A node successfully integrated both RibbonFET gate-all-around transistor architecture and PowerVia backside power delivery for the first time, providing valuable insights that directly informed the development of 18A. Intel's decision to focus on 18A is also driven by economic factors. With the current 18A defect density already at D0 <0.40, the company sees an opportunity to optimize its engineering investments by transitioning now. However, challenges remain, as evidenced by recent reports of Broadcom's disappointment in the 18A node. Despite these hurdles, Intel remains optimistic about the future of its foundry services and the potential of its advanced manufacturing processes. The coming months will be crucial as the company works to demonstrate the capabilities of its 18A node and secure more partners for its foundry business.
72 Comments on Intel 20A Node Cancelled for Foundry Customers, "Arrow Lake" Mainly Manufactured Externally
Better question is, Arrow Lake when?
I can see tax breaks and incentives in the future to pump these fabs.
Arrow Lake P cores on Intel 20A was another lie.
This announcement is from the Foundry group and saying 20A is cancelled for Foundry customers does not necessarily mean Intel themselves does not use it.
it's the main reason I think it's very likely that if sh*t really hits the fan the government will bail them out and in time they will be OK.
(As those fabs without intel it self as the main customer is pointless)
Arrow lake just around the corner, but expensive.
Keep in mind, node names are marketing gimmicks.
www.pcgamesn.com/amd/tsmc-7nm-5nm-and-3nm-are-just-numbers
20A and 18A are essentially the same node, but 18A is mostly a newer set of 'libraries' for development combined with smaller what I would call 'trace' lines. Libraries in this context refers to how components are arranged.
20A and 18A have a similar relationship to each as N3, N3E, N3B have to each other, or a better analogy is probably N5 vs N4.
The same is true of Intel 3 and Intel 4.
Also of note, 20A was specifically just for internal use by Intel. The same is true of Intel 4, it was just for internal designs.
18A and Intel 3 are IFS nodes, meaning for use both internally and externally.
Meteor Lake is using Intel 4.
www.techinsights.com/blog/intel-core-meteor-lake-intel4-io-die-digital-floorplan-analysis
Moreover, Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest are on Intel 3.
www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-launches-144-core-sierra-forrest-xeon-6-cpus-granite-rapids-follows-in-q3
Here’s Intel saying 18A is the foundry node back in February, which agrees with your slide:
www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-foundry-head-stu-pann-explains-companys-plan-to-build-arm-chips-move-more-manufacturing-to-the-us