Intel’s CEO Fires Back at 3nm Delay Rumors
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger addressed rumors this week that the CPU giant is delaying products built using its own Intel 3 and TSMC’s N3 (both in the 3nm class) manufacturing technology. bottom. The CEO re-emphasized that all the 3nm projects announced so far are scheduled for release in 2024.
“The 3nm program is on track, and both TSMC as well as our internal Intel 3 programs, particularly Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest, are on track.” Said Gelsinger at the company’s Intel Capital Allocation Update conference call. “I’m a little surprised that some of these rumored discussions have come up. You may notice there was a similar discussion with Intel 4 a few months ago…”
So far, Intel has disclosed three products that will be manufactured using 3nm class manufacturing technology.
Internally, the company will produce datacenter-oriented Granite Rapids (based on high-performance cores) and Sierra Forest (based on energy-efficient cores) processors on the Intel 3 node (previously known as 5nm). It’s a schedule. This manufacturing process is essentially a refined version of the Intel 4, but with better performance per watt, higher drive current, reduced through resistors, and a dense high-performance library. All of these features are especially beneficial for data center class processors, but via resistance reduction is also beneficial for mobile CPUs. Meanwhile, so far Intel has only internally disclosed two of his products set to be manufactured at his 3nm class node.
For external 3nm projects, things are a little more complicated. Officially, Intel is set to use TSMC’s N3 for the graphics style of its client processors, codenamed Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake, in 2023 and 2024, according to slides Intel has shown many times. In August 2022, a market research firm announced that Intel has decided to postpone the production of Meteor Lake graphics styles on TSMC’s N3 process. At the time, Intel didn’t comment specifically on his 3nm-based project, but Meteor Lake stated that he’s set to release in 2023.
Arrow Lake products, which currently consist of compute tiles made in Intel’s 20A (2nm class) node and graphics tiles made in TSMC’s N3E, are expected in 2024, the company said. . TSMC has quite a lot of experience with his 3nm-class process technology, so it’s unlikely that Intel will decide to postpone Arrow Lake due to TSMC’s N3/N3E issues themselves.
“That is, there are no changes to the program as pointed out,” says Gelsinger. “Solid execution on both client, server and AXG [accelerated graphics] side. Foundry customers are also gaining momentum. So I’m happy to have solved a lot of the execution challenges. As you know, these rumors, like many others, will be completely disproved by our execution.”