“Intel 18a is now ready.” So he announces New target website on the Intel website For the most crucial most crucial up-to-date production node 18A. But what does this mean for a computer?
We already knew that the next Intel laptopin, Panther Lake, is to be made, at least in part, in the up-to-date 18A node. This should be the production of the volume this year, although we do not expect powered laptops 18A to the beginning of 2026.
Another Intel processor, which according to Intel is also a 2026 Nova Lake product, is also a 2026 product. So what to do with Intel claims about immediate readiness 18A?
The up-to-date internet portal is probably more addressed to customers for its nascent casting activities than in the field of raising their own systems. “Intel 18A is now ready for customer designs with tapes starting in the first half of 2025” – says the website.
In terms of internal systems, Intel causes the Clearwater Forest Server processor as an example “18a in action” on the up-to-date website. Clearwater Forest was originally on Intel plans as a product 2025. However, at the end of January, Intel pushed the Clearwater forest back to the first half of 2026Which does not seem to be a huge vote of trust in 18a.
Of course, 18A is the last part of the intelut plan “Five Nodes in four years” (also known as 5N4y), which began with Intel 7, and then went to Intel 4, used in the mobile Metor Lake processor, and then Intel. 3, Intel 20A and finally Intel 18A.
He was in mid -2012, when Pat Gelsinger, Pat Gelsinger, Pat Gelsinger, Pat Gelsinger, raised this idea. This means that 18A must be ready for the summer 2025 to be on the right track. With this in mind, the cynic can say that 18A has announced readiness for customers, all the time does not seem to be able to get one of its own tokens at 18A, is something like the feature of PR.
You can probably say that generally around 5n4y. Looking at each of the nodes, Intel 7 is a version of the same 10 Nm technology, with which Intel has fought for a decade, so this is not a up-to-date node.
Intel 4 was certainly up-to-date, though the rebrand of the planned 7nm node. Naming Intel 3 The up-to-date node is a bit of an episode because it is improved on Intel 4. You can say the same about Intel 20a and 18a, but Intel has canceled 20a anyway.
At least Intel will fall to four nodes for four years. But in the round of five “new” nodes only Intel 4 and Intel 18A are clearly up-to-date. And it turns out if any tokens for 18A are actually available in the Intel frame imposed by it.
Still, if 18A is as good as Intel, which breaks, regardless of whether it is complete “ready” now or at the beginning of next year, it probably doesn’t matter. It will be a great knot, which not only will allow some really competitive systems for Intel, but certainly customers in a queue to produce their systems from the only real alternative to the Taiwanese mega-tanoa TSMC.
Among the other advantages and improvements of the 18A Intel junction, the following claims are:
- Up to 15% better WAT performance and 30% better chip density compared to the Intel 3 process node.
- The earliest available advanced advanced node in North America, offering a resistant alternative to customers.
- The first technology for supplying PowerVIA power, improving the density and utilize of cells by 5 to 10 percent and reducing the descent of resistive power supply, which causes up to 4 percent of ISO efficiency and a significantly reduced decrease in resistance (IR) compared to the front compared to the front. -Ploats power.
- Transistor technology of the Ribbonfet gate (GAA), enabling precise electricity control. Ribbonfet enables further miniaturization of Chip components while reducing the power leak, which is a key problem for more and more denser chips.
If 18A really provides all this, it will certainly be highly competitive with anything TSMC has to offer. Broadly, It is believed that Intel 18A is less dense in terms of logical gates than the upcoming N2 TSMC node And more similar to this metric to the N3 node, which has been popping up for about 18 months.
However, another key measure is SRAM density. SRAM cells are used to ensure critical memory of cache on the chip. Until recently, it was thought that 18A was at best with TSMC N3 for sram density. However, this has recently appeared Intel 18A actually offers exactly the same SRAM density as TSMC N2.
Meanwhile, TSMC does not plan to take into account the supply of reverse power up to its own node A16. In miniature, Power Backside transfers mutual power connections from the top of the system to the bottom of the silicon layer, separating it from signal connections. This reduces disruption and shortens the distance that power must travel, which improves performance and performance.
As above, Intel 18A has rear power, which can be a gigantic advantage over the TSMC N2. Ultimately, we will have to wait and see. But we absolutely have our thumbs and fingers that crossed that 18A was working. The alternative can be very bad for Intel. Gelsinger finally said that “he set the whole company on 18a.”
And the way the chip industry goes nowadays, “very bad for Intel” can quickly change into even more high-priced systems on the computer.
We need as many competitions as possible in the industry. Basically, we agree with the sentiments that the Intel engineer published, and then removed from LinkedIn at the beginning of this week, which basically comes down to not giving up Intel, as is intended to change the situation from 18a.
