Intel has a new architecture roadmap and a plan to retake its chipmaking crown in 2025

guest · Jul 27, 2021

Intel has a new architecture roadmap and a plan to retake its chipmaking crown in 2025
July 26, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/...ated-new-architecture-roadmap-naming-7nm-2025

Intel is rethinking how it releases — and brands — its semiconductor innovations, CEO Pat Gelsinger announced today at the company’s Intel Accelerated webcast. The announcement includes the broad strokes of the next half-decade of Intel’s processor roadmap, new chip and packaging technologies, and a promise of an “annual cadence of innovation,” with the ultimate goal of seeing Intel retake its leadership in the processor space by 2025.
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Here’s a look at Intel’s new roadmap and what it all actually means.

• Intel 7 is the new name for what would have been Intel’s third-generation 10nm technology and the successor to Intel’s 10nm SuperFin (aka Intel’s second-generation 10nm chips, found most notably in its 11th Gen Tiger Lake chips).
• Intel 4 is the architecture formally known as Intel’s 7nm process, which Intel infamously was forced to delay out to 2023 last summer following manufacturing issues. Originally planned for 2021, [...]
• Intel 3, set for manufacturing in the second half of 2023, is the new name for what would have been a second-generation 7nm product under Intel’s previous naming scheme.
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• Intel 20A is the name for the next generation of Intel technologies that, under the old scheme, would have been the architecture following the formerly
branded 7nm node. It’s also the most substantial announcement that Intel made today, technologically speaking, one that will see Intel debut its first new transistor architecture since FinFET in 2011, called “RibbonFET.”

Additionally, 20A will see the introduction of “PowerVia,” a new technology that allows for wafers to be powered from the back of the chip, instead of requiring power to be rounded to the front.
The “20A” in the title is meant to evoke the “Ångstrom era” of semiconductor design — an Ångstrom being a unit of measurement smaller than nanometer.

• Intel 18A is the farthest in the future piece of Intel’s roadmap and will feature the second generation of Intel’s RibbotFET technology for “another major jump in transistor performance.” Intel says that Intel 18A is in development for “early 2025,” and that it expects this generation of technology to re-establish its semiconductor leadership.
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Intel’s new names may help the company recontextualize its current and future products more accurately against its competition, but the fact remains that Intel is behind.

Even with the ambitious, annual cadence for its roadmap, Intel is playing from behind; it doesn’t expect to fully catch up to the rest of the industry until Intel 20A in 2024. And it doesn’t expect to reclaim leadership in the semiconductor business until 2025 with Intel 18A. And all that assumes that Intel doesn’t hit any more delays or manufacturing snags like the ones that held up both its 10nm and 7nm processes (which arguably put the company in its current situation in the first place).
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company's future process and packaging technology roadmaps

guest · Jul 27, 2021

Intel’s foundry roadmap lays out the post-nanometer “Angstrom” era
Could the "Intel 20A" process node (that's 20 Angstroms) rival TSMC and Samsung?
July 27, 2021
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...map-lays-out-the-post-nanometer-angstrom-era/

Earlier this year, Intel got a new CEO and kicked off a new business plan that would open its foundries to other chip-design firms, the same way TSMC and Samsung Semiconductor operate. At its "Intel Accelerated" event today, the company laid out a roadmap for its future as a for-hire foundry. Besides the future of ever-smaller process nodes, the company also announced it has scored one of the world's biggest chip designers, Qualcomm, as a future foundry customer.

As part of entering the foundry market, Intel will start naming its process nodes more like its rivals.
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The name change to "Intel 20A" instead of "2nm" seems to partly be because that process node will include some major architectural changes for Intel's chips.

If Intel actually manages to stick to its roadmap, it should be able to count Qualcomm as an interested customer. President and CEO Cristiano Amon expressed interest in the "20A" node, saying,

"Qualcomm is excited about the breakthrough RibbonFET and PowerVia technologies coming in Intel 20A. We’re also pleased to have another leading-edge foundry partner enabled by IFS [Intel Foundry Services] that will help the U.S. fabless industry to bring its products to an onshore manufacturing site."
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Today, Qualcomm makes a lot of chips and is a customer of both TSMC and Samsung.
Whether or not Intel will be in the mix for most of these foundry battles depends on if it can catch up to TSMC and Samsung. At least now, Qualcomm is offering Intel a spot in the race instead of smartphone irrelevance.
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Intel has a new architecture roadmap and a plan to retake its chipmaking crown in 2025

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