Intel Cancels 20A Manufacturing Process to Focus on 18A

In yet another setback to Intel, the struggling chipmaker is canceling its 20A manufacturing process and will now use rival TSMC to manufacture its Arrow Lake processors.

“Since releasing the Intel 18A Process Design Kit (PDK) 1.0 in July, we have seen positive response across our ecosystem and are encouraged by what we’re seeing from Intel 18A in the fab,” Intel vice president Ben Sell writes, in sharp contrast with yesterday’s news. “Our early success on Intel 18A is that it enables us to shift engineering resources from Intel 20A earlier than expected as we near completion of our five-nodes-in-four-years plan. With this decision, the Arrow Lake processor family will be built primarily using external partners and packaged by Intel Foundry.”

Though this shift mirrors how the Core Ultra Series 2 (“Lunar Lake”) processors are manufactured today, I’m struggling to see how this is good news. But the firm is positioning this shift as a positive, noting that its more modern 18A chip manufacturing process was built on “the groundwork laid by 20A,” enabling the firm to create new techniques, materials and transistor architectures that it hopes will advance its foundry efforts starting in 2025. Sell at least admits that the decision to cancel 20A was based, at least in part, on Intel’s need to reduce costs and focus on what’s most important.

“Focusing resources on Intel 18A also helps us optimize our engineering investments,” he adds. “When we set out to build Intel 20A, we anticipated lessons learned on Intel 20A yield quality would be part of the bridge to Intel 18A. But with current Intel 18A defect density already at D0 <0.40, the economics are right for us to make the transition now.”

“Arrow Lake” is a coming generation of desktop PC microprocessors that mirrors the just-released Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors, and both are built on a 3 nm manufacturing process that Intel is apparently incapable of making reliably. Arrow Lake is expected to debut by the end of 2024, though it’s unclear if this manufacturing shift changes those plans.