Intel had previously announced a partnership with Arm to optimize Arm IP on the Intel 18A process to further reduce the cost and risk of customers using Arm IP adopting Intel 18A.
Ming-Chi Kuo’s latest investigation shows that the cooperation between Arm and Intel is not limited to advanced process optimization. Arm is likely to become an Intel 18A customer, which means Intel will use 18A to produce ARM’s own chips.
Of course, since there is no baseband IP, and considering existing smartphone customers (such as Apple, Qualcomm, etc.), Arm chips will most likely not be involved in mobile phones.
Ming-Chi Kuo believes that if Arm’s own chip shipments go smoothly, it will help Intel’s foundry business and attract orders from other customers, especially in HPC/pure computing applications.
It was previously reported that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger talked about Intel’s product roadmap and technology evolution at the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference earlier this month. He expected that Intel 18A will be launched in 2025, and customers have already paid advance payments.
“I would say, I just went to Oregon yesterday with our technology development team, and it’s not bad. We feel like we’re on track with Intel 18A. For foundry customers, they need a reliable PDK. They want We believe we can do this. Our interest in this area is increasing and progress is going very well.”
“We believe Intel 18A will be in production late next year, putting us in a leading position in 2025. Our in-house products like Clearwater Forest are progressing well, and our next-generation customer products are all in late design stages, as are our foundry customers in this way.”
“Now, we have received a large advance payment from customers for 18A capacity. Customers have enough confidence in us that they have chosen to inject capital to accelerate our 18A capacity. We are very happy about this. Overall, As we speak, everything is progressing steadily. Customer prepayments are really adding to 18A’s momentum and manufacturing capacity.”
“TSMC has established the market, we are a customer of TSMC. So I have a good idea of their wafer costs, their wafer ASPs, their N2 budget that they’re showing to their N5 customers, their N3 customers. We know what the targets are.”
Intel said that Intel 18A is the last node of Intel’s “four years and five process nodes” plan. It is currently progressing steadily as planned in internal and external test chips and is expected to be production-ready in the second half of 2024 and available in 2025.
Intel said that more than five internal products are currently being developed based on the latest Intel 18A process node, and Intel 18A is expected to be available in 2025. The next-generation energy-efficient core Intel Xeon Scalable processor codenamed Clearwater Forest, is scheduled to be delivered in 2025 and will use the Intel 18A process.
In terms of foundry, the Intel 18A process node will initially increase production through Intel’s internal products, so that various issues with the process can be properly resolved. Therefore, the cost of the new process will be reduced to a large extent for external customers served by Intel’s foundry. risk. Recently, Intel announced that it has signed a multi-generation cooperation agreement with Synopsys to deepen its long-term strategic partnership in the fields of semiconductor IP and EDA (electronic design automation) and jointly develop Intel 3 and Intel 18A process-based products for Intel OEM service customers. IP portfolio of nodes. Previously, Arm has signed an agreement with Intel Foundry Services involving multi-generation cutting-edge system chip design, allowing chip design companies to use Intel 18A to develop low-power computing system-on-chip (SoC); Intel will also use Intel 18A for Swedish Telecom Equipment vendor Ericsson builds customized 5G system-level chips.
