According to Chinese speculations, Intel Corporation’s 18A semiconductor production technology is ahead of schedule. The corporation is now investing extensively to resurrect and extend its semiconductor production capabilities. This is part of a strategy unveiled last year by Intel CEO Mr Patrick Gelsinger, in which the business intends to deliver new manufacturing technologies to the market and expand its production to allow other companies to submit their designs for manufacturing to Intel.
The chipmaker plans to introduce a new manufacturing technique every year as part of this strategy, with its Intel 4 technology set to hit the factory floor later this year. However, Intel’s chief competitor, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), has put out plans for many advanced process technologies, culminating at the 2-nanometer (nm) semiconductor fabrication node.
According to today’s rumour, Intel’s response to TSMC’s 2nm technology, the Intel 18A node, is now in production. Based on industry sources, it claims that this technology will go into production sooner than predicted.
In July of last year, Intel unveiled its technology roadmap, which included five new manufacturing technologies. It also rebranded them to make them more competitive with TSMC’s offerings. Intel’s technology was formerly believed to be superior to those given by the Taiwanese corporation before the rebranding. For example, before the naming change, example, TSMC’s 7-nm process node was conceptually comparable to Intel’s 10-nm process when it came to the critical dimensions of a transistor printed by both processes.
Intel’s technology roadmap included the newly designated Intel 10, Intel 7, Intel 4, Intel 3, Intel 20A (angstrom), and Intel 18A manufacturing processes. The 18A process is the most advanced of the three, and Intel predicted that it will go into production in the second half of 2025.
According to unconfirmed industry reports published by EET-China and ITHome, the 18A node, which is comparable to 1.8nm, will go into production in the second half of 2024, putting it six months ahead of schedule. The article doesn’t say which phase of manufacturing will begin in 2024, and Intel’s roadmap just says the node would be “underdevelopment” by early 2025.
If the claims are true, Intel and TSMC will be neck and neck when it comes to the latter’s equivalent 2nm chip production process. According to TSMC’s chief executive officer Dr C.C. Wei’s statements, the company anticipates the technology to reach mass production in 2025. This aligns with Intel’s declared timeframe for the 18A node, as well as a lone rumour from Taiwan that arose in 2020, claiming that TSMC’s 2nm Multi-Bridge Channel Field Effect (MOSFET) transistors might be in production by 2024.
By adding extra conduction regions to a transistor, an MBCFET transistor expands the current FinFET design utilised by most corporations.
Both should, however, be taken with a grain of salt, just like rumours. Apart from the 2020 report, the mill has remained mute on TSMC’s 2nm process, and today’s storey of Intel moving its production timeline forward is the first time we’ve seen such a prediction.
With 2025 still, a long way off, chipmakers are concentrating their efforts on the 3nm manufacturing technique, with Samsung Foundry and TSMC racing to reach mass production. Intel’s Intel 4 process, which sits in the middle of its competitors’ 5nm and 3nm nodes, is expected to go into production in the second half of this year.
also read:
Worlds Smallest Transistor gate has been developed by Chinese Researchers
