Intel has announced a new milestone for its 18A manufacturing node, stating that chips can boot into operating systems. Clients can already start designing chips for this node, as Team Blue aims to enter production next year.
The brand has unveiled that its upcoming node shrink is well underway, as manufactured chips can now boot into systems without any additional configurations. These include Panther Lake architecture for client processors and Clearwater Forest for servers. Intel expects both to enter production in 2025. The company has also announced that the first external customer is expected to tape out on Intel 18A in the first half of next year.
“We are pioneering multiple systems foundry technologies for the AI era and delivering a full stack of innovation that’s essential to the next generation of products for Intel and our foundry customers. We are encouraged by our progress and are working closely with customers to bring Intel 18A to market in 2025,” says Intel senior vice president Kevin O’Buckley.
External consumers can already begin developing their chips as Intel released its 18A Process Design Kit (PDK) 1.0 back in July. These are design tools that help customers harness the capabilities of RibbonFET gate-all-around transistor architecture and PowerVia backside power delivery. The former is Intel’s first new transistor architecture since the introduction of the FinFET back in 2012, whereas the latter is a new way of interconnecting and powering transistors.
In effect, RibbonFET allows better control and a higher drive current at all voltages, which delivers faster transistor switching speeds and higher performance. PowerVia, on the other hand, places the power wires underneath the transistor layer – hence backside power naming – delivering power directly from the package to the transistors. This leaves more room to optimise signal routing on the top side, resulting in a significant frequency boost and a reduction in power leakage, according to Intel.
Intel adds that it is the first to successfully implement both RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors and PowerVia backside power technologies for foundry customers. With this, the company aims to climb back to process leadership, thus showing that it is still a healthy brand. Seeing the recent woes, Intel is in dire need of some good news.
