Latest news with #Zen6
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Intel admits it doesn't have any 'significant' commitments from customers to make advanced chips in its fabs
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. For almost as long as we can remember (okay, about three years), the 18A node has been all-important for Intel. Former CEO Pat Gelsinger said he'd bet the whole company on 18A. Indeed, the first 18A chips are due later this year in the form of intel's next CPU for laptops, Panther Lake. But according to Intel itself, 18A has yet to win any "significant" business from customers. The comment comes from David Zinsner, Intel's CFO, during a conference in Boston yesterday. "We get test chips, and then some customers fall out of the test chips... So committed volume is not significant right now, for sure," Zinsner is reported by Reuters to have said. This is not good news. The likes of Nvidia and Broadcom are widely reported to have sent test chips to Intel to assess the 18A node. Whatever the identity of the companies that have tested 18A, what Zinsner is confirming is that none of those test chips have convinced a major customer to place a big order with Intel. In other words, potential customers have given 18A a try with test chips and haven't yet been convinced to sign a deal, at least not for what Intel itself deems a "significant" volume of chips. And producing chips for customers, as opposed to only making its own products like Core CPUs, is central to Intel's plans for recovery from struggles in recent years. How all this fits in with a purported $15 billion deal between Intel and Microsoft to produce chips isn't clear. That tie up was announced way back in February 2024. As far as we know, that hasn't translated into chips being manufactured and CFO Zinsner's comments seem to indicate that Microsoft is not currently producing chips at volume with Intel. What's odd in the context of the announced Microsoft deal is the implication from Zinsner that there aren't even any significant commitments to produce chips. As is seemingly always the case with Intel and it's 18A node, we'll just have to wait and see. Panther Lake is supposedly coming later this year, so we'll just have to hope it arrives on time and see iof it's any good. We'll likewise have to wait and see if Intel can convince anyone else to sign up to the 18A node any time soon. But the clock is surely ticking. Much of the industry is expected to sign up to TSMC's competing node. AMD, for instance, says it's next-gen Venice server CPU based on Zen 6 CPU cores will be built on TSMC's N2 node. While such chips won't be released for some time, deals to make them are being signed now, and if Intel doesn't begin winning business soon, it could be too late for 18A. Of course, Intel also has a 14A node in development. But like ex-CEO Gelsinger said, Intel has bet the company on 18A. So, it surely needs to win at least some significant business. Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
TSMC's N2 process reportedly lands orders from Intel — Nova Lake is the likely application
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Intel has reportedly placed orders with TSMC for its bleeding-edge 2nm-class N2 process technology, according to Economic Daily News. This news comes shortly after AMD officially confirmed its Zen 6 'Venice' server chips, likely the CCDs, will be fabricated using the same node. If the report is accurate, these wafers are likely intended for Intel's Nova Lake lineup of CPUs. While this might put into question 18A's capabilities, Intel officially declared a dual-sourcing strategy for Nova Lake as early as last Lake serves as the successor to Arrow Lake, and is rumored to feature up to 52 hybrid cores (16P+32E+4LPE) segmented into two blocks of eight Coyote Cove P-cores, 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, with four LPE cores likely in a separate SoC Tile. Rumor has it that Nova Lake will transition to a new LGA1954 socket, meaning existing 800-series motherboards won't be are seeing several architectural jumps here as the expected progression is Lion Cove (ARL/LNL), then Cougar Cove, and Coyote Cove for Performance (P) cores. Similarly, Arctic Wolf is suggested to follow Darkmont, which comes after Skymont (ARL/LNL) for Efficiency (E) cores. With 18A already in risk production, the shift to TSMC is probably driven by capacity needs, rather than performance or yield 18A should power some of Intel's most ambitious products in recent history: Clearwater Forest and Diamond Rapids (rumored), the former of which has been delayed to H1 2026 citing packaging concerns. To ease pressure on its 18A production line and prevent delays with consumer products, Intel, under interim CEO Michelle Holthaus, announced outsourcing some Nova Lake dies to partners like TSMC and insinuated by leaker Kepler on X, high-end Nova Lake products will, allegedly, be built using N2 while 18A will be designated for the lower-end parts. This isn't Intel's first time partnering up with TSMC for CPU production, as the company's latest Arrow Lake CPUs (using N3B, N5P, and N6), Lunar Lake (using N3B and N6), and for GPUs Alchemist (using N6), and Battlemage(using N4) have all leveraged TSMC's process technology. This increases Intel's spending, requiring a careful balance between expediting product launches via external foundries or facing delays with its internal some extent, even Arrow Lake is dual-sourced with Arrow Lake-U (for low-power devices) using the Intel 3 process. While Arrow Lake had minimal in-house production, ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger reported that Intel will produce most of Nova Lake internally. Relying on TSMC isn't inherently bad if 18A can land a handful of external customers. Analysts have also suggested Nvidia might be eyeing Intel's nodes for its consumer GPUs in the future. Either way, Nova Lake is slated to be a 2026 product, so we're likely looking at the second half with how Intel launches usually proceed.
