Intel Is 'Going Big Time Into 14A,' Says CEO Lip-Bu Tan (tomshardware.com)
- Reference: 0180556196
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2231201/intel-is-going-big-time-into-14a-says-ceo-lip-bu-tan
- Source link: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/intel-is-going-big-time-into-14a-says-ceo-lip-bu-tan-serve-the-customer-well-remark-hints-at-external-client
> Intel's 14A is expected to be production-ready in 2027, with early versions of process design kit (PDK) coming to external customers early this year. To that end, it is good to hear Intel's upbeat comments about 14A. Also, Tan's phrasing 'the customer' could indicate that Intel has at least one external client for 14A, implying that Intel Foundry will produce 14A chips for Intel Products and at least one more buyer.
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> The 14A production node will introduce Intel's 2nd Generation RibbonFET GAA transistors; 2nd Gen BSPDN called PowerDirect that will connect power directly to source and drain of transistors, enabling better power delivery (e.g., reducing transient voltage droop or clock stretching) and refined power controls; and Turbo Cells that optimize critical timing paths using high-drive, double-height cells within dense standard cell libraries, which boost speed without major area or power compromises.
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> Yet, there is another aspect of Intel's 14A manufacturing process that is particularly important for the chipmaker: its usage by external customers. With 18A, the company has not managed to land a single major external client that demands decent volumes. While 18A will be used by Intel itself as well as by Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Defense, only Intel will consume significant volumes. For 14A, Intel hopes to land at least one more external customer with substantial volume requirements, as this will ensure that Intel will recoup its investments in the development of such an advanced node.
[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/intel-is-going-big-time-into-14a-says-ceo-lip-bu-tan-serve-the-customer-well-remark-hints-at-external-client
Fabbing for ARM64? (Score:1)
x86 is a dead architecture outside of gaming.
Apple proved that. Anything you can do on an Intel machine you can do more slowly on a Qualcomm Windows 11 laptop and the performance gap will diminish with every generation.
Intel should take some of that sweet federal cash and fab for the K-12 education market running either Chrome OS or Windows 12 Home on the same Qualcomm silicon.
Re: (Score:1)
Personally I'm guessing it's parts for Nvidia and the architecture of whatever they go in will be only tangentially relevant.
Re: (Score:2)
The instruction set is irrelevant, just a tiny fraction of a percent of the footprint, and x86 CPUs decode instructions to RISC-like micro-ops anyway. The reason that Apple was successful with ARM was because they had a really good CPU design, not because of the instruction set that it used.
It is FABulous (Score:3)
For Intel to have a viable Fab story, 14A has to be successful (as will 10A). I wish them well. There was a time when Intel fabs had the best yields in the world. There is no particular reason their engineers may not be able at least return to be among the top tier (various managements might be questionable, but the engineers are still excellent).
He also said... (Score:3)
He also said they OVERdelivered on 18A
Which they had planned to have foundry customers for and don't.
Maybe I won't take him too seriously about 14A either.