Intel 20A Node Cancelled for Foundry Customers, "Arrow Lake" Mainly Manufactured Externally

[regs]

Interesting. What the hell is Arrow Lake manufactured on then? TSMC N3? N4?
Depends on what they mean "primarily" of course. Until now they have said cores chiplet is Intel and 20A.

Highly likely logic die of Arrow Lake will still be, or already, made using Intel 20A process. Press release states - "With this decision, the Arrow Lake processor family will be built primarily using external partners and packaged by Intel Foundry.". It doesn't say entirely. And what it means is that all client and future products will move to 18A.

 

[R0H1T]

Where does that say foundry in the 20A section?

Here’s Intel saying 18A is the foundry node back in February, which agrees with your slide:

Intel Foundry Services Head Stu Pann explains company's plan to build Arm chips, move more manufacturing to the U.S.

Intel poised to compete with TSMC

www.tomshardware.com

The slide is from 2023, mentions "manufacturing ready" 2024 first half for future "client" product which probably was to be ARL(?) & what do you mean by foundry node exactly? The roadmap obviously changed but there's no indication they were just going to use it to throw it away in the bin any time till last year

 

[ToxicTaZ]

Interesting. What the hell is Arrow Lake manufactured on then? TSMC N3? N4?
Depends on what they mean "primarily" of course. Until now they have said cores chiplet is Intel and 20A.

Intel Arrow Lake is On TSMC 3nm

 

[qcmadness]

Well that's one way you can demonstrate your complete ignorance.

Meteor Lake is using Intel 4.

Intel Core Meteor Lake (Intel4) I/O Die Digital Floorplan Analysis | TechInsights

Intel Core Meteor Lake (Intel4) I/O Die Digital Floorplan Analysis

www.techinsights.com

Moreover, Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest are on Intel 3.

Intel Launches 144-core 'Sierra Forrest' Xeon 6 CPUs, Granite Rapids Follows in Q3

Pumping up the core counts.

www.tomshardware.com

View attachment 362181

Can you buy products with Intel 4 anywhere?
But I know we could buy products with TSMC N3 anywhere.

 

[kondamin]

So they will be pointless as Intel will be TSMC customer.

exactly, it would put the US in the same position China is now.

an image comes to mind from a satirical 'childrens'book The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (if you have a library card, you might want to look it up and read it. it's a nice book)

x.com

x.com

replace the boats with fabs, although I'm certain there will be boats too. Loads of parallels could be drawn with the book and today.
But that's not what TPU is about so I better shut up about it.

Anyway: Intel fabs without intel as the main user would mean an other Glofo that can't earn enough to update to the latest technology and will be defunct in a decade or so.

 

[Visible Noise]

Loo

The slide is from 2023, mentions "manufacturing ready" 2024 first half for future "client" product which probably was to be ARL(?) & what do you mean by foundry node exactly? The roadmap obviously changed but there's no indication they were just going to use it to throw it away in the bin any time till last year

look at the title and read the article you are commenting on.

Intel 20A Node Cancelled for Foundry Customers​

Then look at your slide. Does it show 20A as being a foundry node, like it shows for 18A? So by your own evidence 20A was never a foundry node.

Did you read the interview from Feb where Intel says 18A is the foundry node?

I’m hoping that someone that registered here 11 years ago knows what a foundry is.

 

[chrcoluk]

this smells like "20A has oxidation issues too, we're outsourcing this and then working on/fixing 18A"

Bit of speculating there.

 

[londiste]

Can you buy products with Intel 4 anywhere?

Seriously? Yes you can. There are plenty laptops around with Meteor Lake CPUs in them.

Products formerly Meteor Lake

ark.intel.com

 

[R0H1T]

Then look at your slide. Does it show 20A as being a foundry node, like it shows for 18A? So by your own evidence 20A was never a foundry node.

Did you read the interview from Feb where Intel says 18A is the foundry node?

I’m hoping that someone that registered here 11 years ago knows what a foundry is.

I asked you what "foundry" node is; what do you think it means? And no, it was never supposed to be an internal dev(?) node just to scrape later! No one does that, especially not in the situation where Intel is courting other potential customers

 

[kondamin]

I asked you what "foundry" node is; what do you think it means? And no, it was never supposed to be an internal dev(?) node just to scrape later! No one does that, especially not in the situation where Intel is courting other potential customers

The a18 was going to be offered to external customers like Broadcom.
a20 wasgoing to,be something intel was going to be using them selves

 

[R0H1T]

Right & that's why I said what's an internal dev node supposed to mean? It was supposed to be used for ARL, if some reports are to be believed, & no one would spend billions just to abandon a node! It sends a bad signal to your customers that if you can't execute stuff for your own internal consumption properly what'd happen to them?

Hey look what we've got for you a shiny new 18/14A node which is 10~20% better than 20A you know the last node we cancelled

 

[pressing on]

The worst decision right now would be to get rid of Pat IMO. A change in direction now could actually be fatal.

The main issue could be whether there is a serious buyer out there for part or all of the Intel business. The only one that comes to mind is Qualcomm, particularly for the PC design part of Intel and maybe the graphics business but probably not the server segment. But such a selling of some of Intel's assets to Qualcomm still leaves the issue of what to do with the foundries. Ultimately if the USA wants foundries on its soil it may just have to accept that bailing out the Intel foundry business is the least worst option.

 

[londiste]

The main issue could be whether there is a serious buyer out there for part or all of the Intel business. The only one that comes to mind is Qualcomm, particularly for the PC design part of Intel and maybe the graphics business but probably not the server segment. But such a selling of some of Intel's assets to Qualcomm still leaves the issue of what to do with the foundries. Ultimately if the USA wants foundries on its soil it may just have to accept that bailing out the Intel foundry business is the least worst option.

The entire parts of Intel dealing with CPU, GPU and related things are fine, if not more than that. And they will be fine as well. Worst case scenario they will do something similar like AMD with GlobalFoundries.
Foundries are the problem right now. But last sentence is very-very true so I would suspect these will not go anywhere either.

 

[phanbuey]

The main issue could be whether there is a serious buyer out there for part or all of the Intel business. The only one that comes to mind is Qualcomm, particularly for the PC design part of Intel and maybe the graphics business but probably not the server segment. But such a selling of some of Intel's assets to Qualcomm still leaves the issue of what to do with the foundries. Ultimately if the USA wants foundries on its soil it may just have to accept that bailing out the Intel foundry business is the least worst option.

Or they will have a military contractor buy them out - someone like Northrop Grumman. That's a giant potential moneypit but probably on the table.

 

[R0H1T]

Worst case scenario they will do something similar like AMD with GlobalFoundries.

I seriously doubt Intel can spin off IFS & still stay afloat, in fact IFS might go under if they spin them off. The comparison with GF isn't very apt as GF was profitable at the time(?) or slightly later. IFS is bleeding lots of money with Intel, with no major (new) customers in sight. I'd go so far as to say that spinning it off right now, or selling Intel (divisions) as parts, would almost certainly trigger the US govt having to bail them out! Or maybe that's the plan?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I seriously doubt Intel can spin off IFS & still stay afloat, in fact IFS might go under if they spin them off. The comparison with GF isn't very apt as GF was profitable at the time(?) or slightly later. IFS is bleeding lots of money with Intel, with no major (new) customers in sight. I'd go so far as to say that spinning it off right now, or selling Intel (divisions) as parts, would almost certainly trigger the US govt having to bail them out! Or maybe that's the plan?

I don't think the U.S. gov will care where the world HQ is as long as there is a U.S. HQ. Why can't Samsung and TSMC get the money for more fabs here, if Intel fails to deliver?

 

[R0H1T]

Probably but Intel failing will lead to massive job losses, worst case scenario someone from China buys their IP or whatever's left of the scraps.

How a British tech champion almost fell into China’s grasp

After an attempted boardroom ‘coup’, Imagination has swung back to the West

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Probably but Intel failing will lead to massive job losses, worst case scenario someone from China buys their IP or whatever's left of the scraps.

How a British tech champion almost fell into China’s grasp

After an attempted boardroom ‘coup’, Imagination has swung back to the West

www.telegraph.co.uk

interesting.

Intel would still be able to operate some fabs because of the DoD contractors correct? I don't think they'd let S. Korea or Taiwan have access to that stuff.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Can you buy products with Intel 4 anywhere?
But I know we could buy products with TSMC N3 anywhere.

Are people really as dense and bias as you appear to be?

Yes you can buy Intel 4 Meteor Lake virtually anywhere. Wal-Mart even sells them.

 

[N/A]

Wait, some meteor lakes are already on S1851. from 2024. I guess that was the test vessel. Could be interesting if we can run it on desktop eventually.

20A is the former 5 nm, 18A is 5 nm+, it's a "+" so it only makes sense to use the ""+ from then on like always. But makes you wonder if there's a ++ or 16A, probably not and it goes directly to 14A (3nm).

 

[Visible Noise]

The comparison with GF isn't very apt as GF was profitable at the time(?) or slightly later

Global Foundries first profitable year was 2022. That’s why the UAE dropped them, they didn’t see a future. Overall from the day AMD spun them off they have lost billions of dollars.

This stuff is easy to look up.

 

[R0H1T]

You have their results from 2008/09 or so?

 

[Visible Noise]

You have their results from 2008/09 or so?

Yes, and you can too.

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