In a blow to the company’s chip prowess, Intel has decided to fully outsource manufacturing for its Arrow Lake desktop CPUs to a third party, likely Taiwan’s TSMC.
The company originally envisioned building the Arrow Lake family using both Intel’s 20A manufacturing process and the 3-nanometer fabrication tech from TSMC. But on Wednesday, Intel announced it was killing off the 20A manufacturing process to shift resources to the company’s more advanced 18A process.
“With this decision, the Arrow Lake processor family will be built primarily using external partners and packaged by Intel Foundry,” VP Ben Sell said in the post.
TSMC wasn’t named directly. But the chip manufacturing giant began producing chips for Intel’s laptop-focused Lunar Lake line and Arrow Lake in June, according to reports out of Taiwan.
Intel is killing off the 20A process as it faces a dire financial outlook, causing it to cut a staggering 15,000 jobs and consider selling off certain businesses. The effort to shave costs has also led it to prioritize the 18A manufacturing process, which Intel is betting will restore the company’s fortunes when the chip line launches in 2025. The company plans on harnessing 18A to produce “Panther Lake” CPUs for consumers next year.
In Wednesday’s post, Intel’s Ben Sell noted: “We have seen positive response across our ecosystem and are encouraged by what we’re seeing from Intel 18A in the fab.”
Sell also indicated that the Intel 20A process was meant to be more of a stepping stone to the more advanced 18A technology rather than a true chip manufacturing line. “The journey to Intel 18A has been built on the groundwork laid by Intel 20A,” he said. “It enabled us to explore and refine new techniques, materials, and transistor architectures that are crucial for advancing Moore’s Law.”
Still, the news underscores how Intel could become reliant on TSMC if its 18A node fails to meet the hype. TSMC also produces processes for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. It has maintained steadier progress in improving its chip manufacturing tech compared with Intel, which notoriously stumbled into delays with its 10-nanometer and 7-nanometer chip processes. Last year, Intel’s Meteor Lake chips for laptops were also built using TSMC.
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