Intel Corporation today reported first-quarter 2024 financial results. "We are making steady progress against our priorities and delivered a solid quarter," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "Strong innovation across our client, edge and data center portfolios drove double-digit revenue growth in Intel Products. With Intel 3 in high-volume production, leading-edge semiconductors are being manufactured in the U.S. for the first time in almost a decade and we are on track to regain process leadership next year as we grow Intel Foundry. We are confident in our plans to drive sequential growth throughout the year as we accelerate our AI solutions and maintain our relentless focus on execution, operational discipline and shareholder value creation in a dynamic market."

"Q1 revenue was in line with our expectations, and we delivered non-GAAP EPS above our guidance, driven by better-than-expected gross margins and strong expense discipline," said David Zinsner, Intel CFO. "Our new foundry operating model, which provides greater transparency and accountability, is already driving better decision-making across the business. Looking ahead, we expect to deliver year-over-year revenue and non-GAAP EPS growth in fiscal year 2024, including roughly 200 basis points of full-year gross margin improvement." In the first quarter, the company used $1.2 billion in cash from operations and paid dividends of $0.5 billion.

Last week at the Intel Foundry Services Connect event, Intel unveiled its Intel 14A foundry node (1.4 nm-class), to succeed its Intel 18A and Intel 20A nodes, with mass production on this node expected to commence in 2026. It turns out that there is an even more advanced node Intel is working on, which it didn't announce last week, but which was part of an NDA presentation that the company forgot to lift. We're talking about the new Intel 10A node, a 1 nm-class silicon fabrication node that's a generation ahead of Intel 20A. The company says that it expects mass production on the node to begin toward the end of 2027. It is on the backs of these sub-2 nm class nodes, and the impending organizational changes that sees Intel Foundry Services become a more independent commercial entity, that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger thinks that Intel will become the "TSMC of the West."

Currently, fabs that utilize EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography, namely the Intel 4, Intel 3, and Intel 20A; together make barely 15% of Intel's wafer volumes, with the bulk of the foundry's production focusing on the DUV based Intel 7. EUV-based nodes are expected to linearly grow till 2025, but what's interesting is that Intel doesn't see the kind of multi-year stagnation on Intel 4 and Intel 3 that it's currently experiencing with Intel 7; with wafer volumes of Intel 20A and 18A expected to exceed those of the Intel 4 and Intel 3 within 2025. By 2026, Intel expects that there will be twice as many Intel 20A/18A wafers pushed as Intel 4 and Intel 3. Although they use EUV, Intel 4 and Intel 3 are Intel's final nodes to implement FinFET transistors, as the company transitions to nanosheets with Intel 20A (which are called RibbonFETs in Intel jargon). Intel did not get into the technology behind Intel 10A. The company, along with Samsung and TSMC, demonstrated its stacked CFET transistor in 2023, which will power foundry nodes as nanosheets mature. Intel in its presentation also talked about the next wave of factory automation implemented by IFS, which sees AI-driven "cobots" (collaborative robots) replace humans for more roles in the clean room.

Intel Corp. today launched Intel Foundry as a more sustainable systems foundry business designed for the AI era and announced an expanded process roadmap designed to establish leadership into the latter part of this decade. The company also highlighted customer momentum and support from ecosystem partners - including Synopsys, Cadence, Siemens and Ansys - who outlined their readiness to accelerate Intel Foundry customers' chip designs with tools, design flows and IP portfolios validated for Intel's advanced packaging and Intel 18A process technologies.

The announcements were made at Intel's first foundry event, Intel Foundry Direct Connect, where the company gathered customers, ecosystem companies and leaders from across the industry. Among the participants and speakers were U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Arm CEO Rene Haas, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others.