Intel Says Its 18A Node is 25% Faster Than Intel 3
The company's more interesting claims boil down to this: a chip based on the 18A process can be up to 25% faster. If you stick to the same speed as Intel 3, 18A is 36% more efficient. That sounds intriguing, but the comparison that potential customers will make is not between 18A and Intel 3; it will be between Intel's 18A and TSMC's N2, which is the 2-nm class node. Intel's chief rival in the processor space, AMD, already has TSMC producing its next generation of Epyc data center CPUs on the N2 node.
In any event, we'll have answers with the arrival of Intel's upcoming Panther Lake laptop CPUs. Samples of the system-on-a-chip (SoC) made an appearance at Computex this summer, proving that the vaunted 18A node is about ready for production. Intel estimates that it will start production of the chips sometime this year. As for when we'll see laptops with Panther Lake chips in them? That's looking more like early 2026, says Intel.
Credit: Intel
Intel's 18A node is nearing completion at a crucial time for the company. It is the final node in former CEO Pat Gelsinger's five-nodes-in-four-years plan, which was meant to revitalize Intel's fortunes. Gelsinger hoped to develop Intel's manufacturing capabilities into a successful foundry business, but the journey was slow and saw setbacks. When Intel spun its manufacturing into a foundry business in the spring of 2024, the company revealed that the foundry business was losing billions every year. And profitability wasn't expected until 2030.
The company kicked off its ambitious plan with the Intel 7, which was followed by the 4 and then the 3 node. At that point, Intel changed its naming convention with the 20A node. The 20A node ended up being scrapped, however, and Intel turned its attention entirely to making 18A, which is the process that will be used to make Panther Lake chips, a success. At this point, 18A has reached risk production and appears well on its way to crossing the finish line. Gelsinger, meanwhile, is no longer with Intel, which has a new leader in CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
How once-iconic Intel fell into a 20-year decline
What happens when a U.S. president tries to take down the CEO of a publicly traded company? We're about to find out in a bizarre case that could alter not just the career of a CEO but also a one-time corporate jewel of American enterprise, a global industry, and what a previous Commerce Secretary has called 'the most important piece of hardware in the 21st century.' The drama began on the morning of August 7, when President Trump posted a short statement on Truth Social: 'The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!' The post suddenly directed attention to a letter Senator Tom Cotton (R.-Ark.) had sent to Intel's board chairman two days earlier. It said Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan 'reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies,' and a multinational company had recently pleaded guilty to violating U.S. export controls 'under Mr. Tan's tenure,' among other accusations. By day's end, Tan had sent a letter to Intel employees saying, 'There has been a lot of misinformation circulating about my past roles…. I have always operated within the highest legal and ethical standards,' and Intel had told the media, 'We look forward to our continued engagement with the Administration.' The stock fell 5% on an up day for the market, another blow to Intel shareholders who had hoped—finally—that things might have hit bottom. How Intel lost its edge It would have been a one-day story if it weren't about Intel (INTC), once the world's biggest, most advanced maker of computer chips. It's decline began some 20 years ago, when the company made multiple acquisitions, many of which were in telecommunications and wireless technology. In concept, that made great sense. But acquiring businesses is a skill of its own, and David Yoffie, a Harvard Business School professor who was on Intel's board of directors at the time, told Fortune '100% of those acquisitions failed. We spent $12 billion, and the return was zero or negative.' Intel also tried unsuccessfully to grasp the mammoth cell phone opportunity. The company understood the opportunity and was supplying chips for the highly popular BlackBerry phone. The chips were designed by Arm, a British firm that designs chips but doesn't manufacture them. Intel understandably preferred to make phone chips with its own architecture, known as x86. The company decided to stop making Arm chips and to create an x86 chip for cell phones—in retrospect, 'a major strategic error,' says Yoffie. 'The plan was that we would have a competitive product within a year, and we ended up not having a competitive product within a decade,' he recalls. 'It wasn't that we missed it. It was that we screwed it up.' As years went by, simple poor management crept in. Intel kept missing new-chip deadlines and lost market share. The company gave up on smartphone chips. CEOs were replaced, but the production troubles continued until, by 2021, for the first time in Intel's existence, its chips were two generations behind competitors'. Those competitors were Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung. In crisis mode, Intel's board brought back Pat Gelsinger, an engineer who had spent 30 years at Intel before leaving for 11 years to be a high-level executive at EMC and then CEO of VMware. As Intel's CEO he announced an extraordinarily ambitious and expensive plan to reclaim the company's stature as the world leader in chip technology. In February of this year, as the stock price fell, the board fired him and brought in Tan. Despite it all, Intel is still crucially important because it's the only U.S. company with the technology and know-how to make leading-edge chips in America–though it hasn't actually done that in eight years. At the highest level of geopolitics, primacy in chips is central to power, and for the past eight years the world's fastest, most valuable chips have been made only in Taiwan and South Korea. That's why Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act with bipartisan majorities. It became law in 2022 and starting last year has sent billions of dollars to chipmakers, American and foreign, building new factories and other chip infrastructure in the U.S. Intel was allotted the most subsidies, about $8 billion plus loans, though the company hasn't received most of the money, which is disbursed based on reaching project milestones. It's as if the money came just a little too late. 'Intel had a great opportunity,' says Gaurav Gupta, an analyst at the Gartner research firm. 'They were getting all these subsidies from the government. But I think they just could not execute.' At that critical moment, poor performance was costly. 'A year and a half ago there was still positivity with Intel,' says Alvin Nguyen, an analyst at the Forrester research firm. 'Now, not as much. The negativity that's hit them, it's just snowballed.' Now suppose Tan were to step down as CEO. 'Who wants that job?' asks Stacy Rasgon, a longtime tech analyst at Bernstein. He observes in a recent note that Tan 'doesn't 'need' to run Intel (he's very wealthy and has a lot of other things to occupy his time)…. He clearly wants to do what is best for Intel…' But it's unclear if resigning would be good or bad for the company, 'especially with Trump's crosshairs on his back.' Rasgon, speaking to Fortune, asks, 'How do you attract somebody else into that spot?' Getting Tan wasn't easy. 'The board took a while in finding the new CEO when [previous boss] Pat Gelsinger left,' says Gupta. 'It took a long time to find a candidate willing to take control and lead the company in a direction.' Nonetheless, Yoffie and three other former Intel directors argued in a statement to Fortune for a new company, a new board, and a new CEO, spinning off Intel's manufacturing arm into an independent company to secure America's chipmaking dominance. Trump's post puts himself at the center of a crucial conundrum for national security. Global dominance requires a reliable source of leading-edge chips. That's why Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in 2024 said they're 'the most important piece of hardware….' The world's largest producer of leading-edge chips by far, Taiwan's TSMC, is building two fabs in Arizona, subsidized by the CHIPS Act, with more planned. 'You can make the argument that the more capacity builds in Arizona, maybe the less we need Intel,' says Rasgon. But TSMC isn't an American firm, and Nguyen says 'the best technology from TSMC is definitely not coming to the U.S. at this time.' Which leaves Intel. 'They're the only American company that can do it,' says Rasgon. 'But Intel still has to prove they could deliver. They haven't proven that.' Trump has shined a spotlight on the once-iconic company. But identifying problems and solving them are two very different matters, something Intel-watchers have known for going on two decades. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Apple is a star (again) as investors hope tariffs don't squeeze markets
Apple is a star (again) as investors hope tariffs don't squeeze markets originally appeared on TheStreet. Stocks had a nifty week last week, especially technology shares. All of the major averages had solid weeks. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.4%, its best week since June. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 3.87%. Its compadre, the Nasdaq-100 Index, added 3.73%. The small-cap Russell 2000 Index moved up 2.38%. And the venerable Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a 1.35% gain. The market's gains came as new tariff rates for goods exported to the United States seemed to settle in at around 15%, with a number of deals not yet finished with a number of countries, including Canada, China and Mexico. What's not clear is the effects tariffs might have on the domestic economy and has added volatility to financial markets. There is a lawsuit now before the U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that the president can not impose tariffs unilaterally. Some stocks had positively gaudy returns. Palantir Technologies () added 21.19% on the week after reporting its second-quarter revenue hit $1 billion, up 48% from a year earlier. It projected $4 billion-plus in revenue for the Networks () jumped 18.4%, and Axon Enterprise () , maker of the Taser and other equipment targeted at law enforcement, rose 13.5%. But there have to be losers, and there were: Eli Lilly () , off nearly 18% Thursday because orforglipron, its GLP-1 weight-loss that can be taken with a pill, didn't perform as well as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy in the latest trial. It was the biggest one-day loss for Lilly in 25 years. The Trade Desk () , an advertising platform that helps advertisers reach audiences across many channels, fell 37%.Apple reminds people they're still around Here we have to note Apple () , a stock many people currently loathe. The iPhone is wonderful, they'll say. So is the Macintosh computer. The graphics are great. But where's the artificial intelligence? Apple doesn't have an AI product to compete directly against Microsoft, Meta Platforms () and Google-parent Alphabet () At the end of July, Apple was down 17.1% for the year. This week, Apple shares were up 13.3%, sixth-best among S&P 500 stocks and the 2024 stock price decline has been cut to 8.4%. Reason: CEO Tim Cook said the company will invest an extra $100 billion on new plants in the United States. In exchange, the Trump Administration agreed to waive tariffs on Apple products made in China and India. Its market cap has risen to $3.4 trillion. Tech led the sectors Among the 11 S&P 500 sectors, technology had the best week, rising 4.27%, followed by Consumer Discretionary at 3.81% and Communications Services. Techs were led by Palantir, Arista Networks, Micron Technology () and Apple. Only three sectors were down on the week: Real Estate, down 0.14%. Health Care, down 0.8%. Energy, down 1%. Crude oil is down 11.7% on the year. The overall S&P 500 Index is up 8.63% and 32% from the bottom after President Trump introduced what's proven to be a first draft of a tariff plan. More Experts Stocks & Markets Podcast: Sectors to Avoid With Jay Woods Trader makes bold call with Boeing stock after defense workers strike Veteran fund manager sends urgent 9-word message on stocks But . . . There's always a catch After the market's decent-to-strong performance this past week, maybe in the back of your mind, you're thinking: Relatively speaking, how does it compare. Nicely, as noted. But the S&P 500 Index, used often as a short hand for the market, hasn't had a record close in (gasp!) nine whole days. Is this the end of the world? Probably not. The index has already seen 15 record closes in 2025, and autumn has not yet arrived. In 2024, in part because of the presidential election, there were 29 new record closes between July 26 and the end of the all, the index generated 57 new closing highs in 2024, according to Howard Silverblatt, Standard & Poor's senior index analyst. The record is still 77 closing highs in 1995. And that was as the Internet Bubble of the late 1990s was just getting started. The timing of new highs quite variable. The S&P 500 hit a closing high of 6,144.15 on Feb. 15. It took 128 days — and the tariff-induced minicrash in April — before the index hit a new record close: 6,173 on June 27. What's ahead for the market? The week ahead includes 621 earnings reports, a goodly number until you remember that last week 1,552 companies reported quarterly results. All will mention tariffs somehow. The reports expected to grab the most attention will be: Dow component Cisco Systems () , due after Wednesday's close. Cisco makes routers and networking equipment. Revenue estimate: $14.5 billion, up 7% from a year ago. Earnings estimate is 91 cents a share, up 4.6%. Chip-equipment maker Applied Materials () , after Thursday's close. The revenue estimate: $7.2 billion, up 5.4% from a year ago. Earnings estimate: $2.35 a share, up 10.9%. Farm-equipment maker Deere & Co. () , before Thursday's open. Revenue estimate: $10.3 billion, down 21.7%. Earnings estimate: $4.60, down 27%. Tapestry () , the owner of Coach leather goods and Kate Spade New York. Revenue estimate: $1.7 billion, up 5.4% from a year ago. Earnings estimate: $1, up 8.7%. Apple is a star (again) as investors hope tariffs don't squeeze markets first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 10, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 10, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Geek Wire
3 hours ago
- Geek Wire
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Aug. 3, 2025
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Aug. 3, 2025. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on GeekWire
