INTEL

Semiconductor giant announced completion of development of Intel 20A and 18A processes ahead of schedule

Wang Rui, one of the presidents of Intel, officially announced the successful completion of the development of the processes currently called Intel 20A and Intel 18A (in the old materials, 20A was referred to as 5nm, but two years ago Intel unified the marking to be comparable with other manufacturers).

Rui emphasized that the development of processes was completed ahead of schedule. The editors of Tom'sHardware (it's not clear if they got this information from Intel or if it's their own deduction) claim that thanks to this leadership, Intel could advance to the "ready to manufacture" stage of 2025's 18A for the second half of 2024.

The second half of 2024, however, is already practically a year for Intel in connection with the 18A process (see the slide above for April 2022, or our article: Intel published a process roadmap, Meteor Lake looks like fall 2023) . Mention of 2025 only appeared once in Intel's public materials in connection with the 18A process, and that was in mid-2021 in the "Intel 18A in development for early 2025" connection.

However, Intel had to adjust plans a bit to achieve this goal. Instead of the ASML Twinscan EXE EUV scanners released in 2021 with a numerical aperture (effective luminosity) of 0.55, Intel will have to rely on the existing ASML Twinscan NXE with a numerical aperture of 0.33, which will require double sampling (standardization double), that is, in time and a more financially demanding production process. However, thanks to this, mass production should start as early as the second half of 2024 and be available for both Intel and its customers. It is the 18A process that Intel is expected to place at the “undisputed leadership” in the world of semiconductor production.

mundophone