Lunar Lake, it seems, will not be released according to Intel 18A
Intel has repeatedly emphasized how important the Intel 18A process technology is for it. The first chips using this technical process, according to early data from Intel itself, should have hit the market at the end of this year. True, it now turns out that Intel will really not start mass-producing products according to these standards very soon.
The company stated that it will reach truly large production volumes of semiconductor products according to Intel 18A standards only in 2026! That is, more than a year later, and perhaps about two years later from the start of production.
We will be increasing production of Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest — the first client product and the first server product based on Intel 18A — in 2025. In 2026, we will begin to increase production volumes of Intel 18A
The company also added that in 2025, most of the wafers that Intel will produce will be produced using Intel 7 and Intel 10 technical processes. Recall that Intel 7 — This is not a seven-nanometer technical process at all, but a 10-nanometer one. And what Intel 10 is is not at all very clear, since the company changed the names of its technical processes just starting with Intel 7. Perhaps Intel 10 — This is an even older 14nm process, but it could also be some early version of 10nm.
The company added that in 2025 it will produce quite a lot of wafers according to Intel 3 standards and very few according to Intel 18A standards. Intel 20A is not mentioned here at all.
Intel will be ahead of even TSMC, but does this concern quality? The company will be the first to start producing chips using the 2 nm process technology
It is also worth paying attention to Intel's words about future products based on Intel 18A. The company says the first consumer products based on Intel's 18A process will be Panther Lake processors due in 2025. However, we previously saw on Intel slides a mention of the Intel 18A process technology regarding Lunar Lake CPUs, which will be released at the end of this year. That is, it turns out that the company is not in time to master this technical process in time for the launch of Lunar Lake. Apparently, these processors, like Arrow Lake, will be produced according to Intel 20A standards. However, let us remember that we are talking about chiplet CPUs, where Intel itself will not produce all chiplets. There were even rumors that both processor and graphics tiles from Lunar Lake could be sent to TSMC for production at 3 nm standards.