Intel has announced that its 18A manufacturing process has entered High-Volume Manufacturing (HVM) at its Fab 52 in Arizona, with yields meeting expectations. This 2nm-class node utilizes the RibbonFET transistor architecture and PowerVia backside power delivery, delivering a 15% performance-per-watt improvement and a 30% density increase over the Intel 3 process.
The first client product on 18A, Panther Lake (Core Ultra 3 series), is scheduled for a late 2025 launch. It features a chiplet architecture and delivers a platform AI compute of 180 TOPS, with both CPU and GPU performance seeing over 50% generational gains. It will be followed by Nova Lake in late 2026.
In the data center, the 18A-based Clearwater Forest (Xeon 6+) and Diamond Rapids (Xeon 7) processors are on track for a mid-2026 release and beyond. Intel also confirmed that the future Coral Rapids will reintroduce Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT).
ICgoodFind: Intel's 18A rollout marks a significant competitive counter-punch, set to reshape the landscape for client and server processors.
