By: Craig Kennedy
Intel Is Back in the Foundry Business—Entering the Angstrom Era
On Friday, July 28th 2023, during Intel’s earnings announcement, CEO Pat Gelsinger made several product announcements that confirmed Intel is back and firing on all cylinders.
Gelsinger announced that its Intel 4 (7 nm) process technology, the first to use extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), is ramping up production and its Intel 3 (5 nm) process technology has already achieved its yield and performance targets and is on track for delivery in 2024.
Intel Struggled to Shrink Its Dies—The Long Road to 10 nm
Intel had historically been an innovation and manufacturing powerhouse with follow-on generations of its processors happening every few years.
In the mid 2010s, this cadence came to a screeching halt as Intel struggled to move off its 14 nm technology to its 10 nm technology. Originally scheduled to be produced in 2016, Intel’s 10 nm offering didn’t hit the streets until 2019, and then only in a limited use cases.
Intel continued producing 14nm based processors into 2021, seven years after it was first introduced in 2014. By the time Intel was able to successfully release its first 10 nm die (in limited use cases), TSMC and Samsung had 7 nm in production and well on the way to producing 5 nm.
Impact on the Business—The Staggering Cost of Delays
During this time, Intel relinquished its dominance in the chip manufacturing business as TSMC in Taiwan and Samsung in South Korea gained dominance due to their ability to produce 10 nm chips. Intel also saw a loss of market share in the x86 market to AMD as TSMC was able to manufacture 10 nm and then 7 nm chips for them. Intel was also replaced as the exclusive CPU in Apple Macs as Apple decided to design its own 7 nm silicon SoC and have TSMC manufacture it.
Back on Track—The Roadmap to 2025
After the disaster of the late 2010s, Intel is back on track to release its initial Intel 3 (5 nm) chip called Sierra Forest in the first half of 2024. Sierra Forest is a server CPU with up to 144 E-cores and is Intel’s first efficiency focused chip. For its laptop chips, Intel is leaping into what it’s referring to as the Angstrom Era, chips based on 20 angstrom or smaller (10 angstrom = 1 nm).
Its initial Angstrom Era offering will be its Intel 20A (2 nm) series scheduled to be released in the 2nd half of 2024. This will be followed up by its 18A (1.8 nm) series targeted for the 2nd half of 2024.
Bottom Line:
When Pat Gelsinger took over the reigns as CEO a little over 2 ½ years ago, he inherited a company that seemed to have lost its way as a leader in chip design and manufacturing. In a few short years, all signs are that the ship has been righted and is on track for retaking dominance in chip manufacturing, not only as a foundry for its own designs, but for outsourcing to others looking for a potential alternative to TSMC.
See Craig LIVE for “Cybersecurity in the Age of AI: Fighting Fire With Fire”
Airing LIVE on Thursday, August 17th at 10 AM PT | 1 PM ET
Cybercriminals are aggressively weaponizing artificial intelligence (AI) to launch increasingly effective cyberattacks against organizations. These cybercriminals are using AI to launch sophisticated and stealthy cyberattacks, such as creating realistic deep fakes, generating malware that can evade detection systems, creating convincing phishing emails, or identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in real-time.
In this webinar, you will learn how AI can help you fight fire with fire to combat and survive these AI-powered cybersecurity attacks.
Some key areas we’ll cover:
- How cybercriminals are changing the game with AI?
- What solutions are available to combat these threats?
- How emerging AI technologies will transform cybersecurity?
This blog is a part of the Digital Operations blog series by Aragon Research’s Sr. Director of Research, Craig Kennedy.
Missed an installment? Catch up here!
