Intel has announced new chip technologies that promise to make it a more formidable future competitor of Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and that put the 7nm processor built by China’s SMIC for Huawei’s new 5G smartphone in a new perspective.
In a keynote address at the Intel Innovation 2023 event that opened in San Jose on September 19, CEO Pat Gelsinger said the company’s 2nm process (20A, or 20 angstroms, which equals 2 nanometers) will be production-ready in the first half of 2024 and its 18A process in the second half of the same year.
Intel’s 18A silicon should go into the fab in the first quarter of next year, leading to high-volume production in 2025.
If all goes according to plan, it would mark the success of Intel’s “5 Nodes in 4 Years” catch-up strategy announced by Gelsinger in 2021. TSMC and Samsung Electronics have 3nm processes in production now and plan to launch 2nm in 2025.