Intel reaches 'exciting milestone' for 18A 1.8nm-class wafers with first run at Arizona fab

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For now, its only test wafers

18A
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

While the whole market was looking at the appointment of Lip-Bu Tan as Intel chief executive, there was another major development at the company this week: The first 18A (1.8nm-class) wafers are running around Intel's Arizona fab. Intel's Fab 52 and Fab 62 in Arizona are high-volume production facilities, so running 18A fabs there is a major milestone for the company.

"Exciting Milestone for Intel 18A," wrote Pankaj Marria, an engineering manager at Intel, in a LinkedIn post that was eventually hidden but captured by @Mojo_flyin on X. "Proud to be part of the Eagle Team, leading the way in bringing Intel 18A technology to life! Our team was at the forefront of running the initial lots right here in Arizona, marking a key step in advancing cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing."

Up until recently, Intel processed wafers on its 18A production technology at its site near Hillsboro, Oregon, where new manufacturing processes are developed. While the company can volume produce chips in Oregon as well, porting this new fabrication process to a brand-new fab in Arizona is indeed a milestone for the company.

For now, the company is running test wafers to ensure that the fabrication process transfer is a success, but eventually the fab will start running actual chips for commercial products.

Intel is set to mass produce compute chiplets for its upcoming codenamed Panther Lake processors on 18A technology later this year. Eventually, Intel's 18A production node will be used to make Intel's Xeon 7 codenamed Clearwater Forest processor for datacenters.

Intel pins a lot of hope on the upcoming 18A fabrication process. The manufacturing technology relies on gate-all-around RibbonFET transistors that promise to increase performance and cut down power consumption.

It also features backside power delivery, which is meant to ensure steady power delivery to power-hungry processors and increase transistor density by decoupling signal and power wires within a chip.

"This achievement is a testament to the hard work, innovation, and dedication of everyone involved. The Eagle has landed, and this is just the beginning! Developed and Made in America the world's smallest node," Marria added.

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

29 Comments Comment from the forums
  • TommyCC
    This is a significant positive milestone in getting the company back on track.
    Reply
  • Marco_il_bello
    So if I understood correctly, a month ago Broadcom abandons Intel because the production processes were poor, then after a month news that Broadcom and Nvidia are testing 18th production, then news that they postpone factories for problems beyond 2030 and then new CEO and TO 18th is ready for production, today. Tomorrow will another piece of news come out that will say the opposite?
    Question: when the Chinese claim to have reached Nvidia they shout propaganda news and then it comes to mind, but will this also be propaganda towards the Taiwanese to make them lower their prices?
    Reply
  • Gururu
    Marco_il_bello said:
    So if I understood correctly, a month ago Broadcom abandons Intel because the production processes were poor, then after a month news that Broadcom and Nvidia are testing 18th production, then news that they postpone factories for problems beyond 2030 and then new CEO and TO 18th is ready for production, today. Tomorrow will another piece of news come out that will say the opposite?
    Question: when the Chinese claim to have reached Nvidia they shout propaganda news and then it comes to mind, but will this also be propaganda towards the Taiwanese to make them lower their prices?
    It is all fake news. Even the market is sensitive to rumors, which is sad. Modern news is yesterday's National Enquirer.
    Reply
  • Shiznizzle
    Anything that ultimately keep AMD from spiraling out of our hands like happened with Nvidia and their prices, is a good thing.

    I am not Intel fan, never was, but this is good for the market. I dont want any one single entity cornering the whole market like nvida had with its 4000 series. When that happens companies tend to charge what they want rather than what they think the market will pay. And this is exactly the state we are in now.

    3500 dollars for a GPU anybody? We are talking brand new car levels of money for a GPU now. Yesh, ok, it might be a tata car from india but a brand new car it is still.
    Reply
  • Marco_il_bello
    Shiznizzle said:
    Anything that ultimately keep AMD from spiraling out of our hands like happened with Nvidia and their prices, is a good thing.

    I am not Intel fan, never was, but this is good for the market. I dont want any one single entity cornering the whole market like nvida had with its 4000 series. When that happens companies tend to charge what they want rather than what they think the market will pay. And this is exactly the state we are in now.

    3500 dollars for a GPU anybody? We are talking brand new car levels of money for a GPU now. Yesh, ok, it might be a tata car from india but a brand new car it is still.
    don't hope for anything, because if the REAL competition comes they ban it, perhaps many have forgotten the Huawei case, you are good and you pass the competition ban you.
    So competition won't exist
    Reply
  • 3en88
    Even if the chips are 2x better than the competition Intel is still a design and end product competitor so I'm not sure if they can attract the big fabless players to their foundry but if they're good enough they certainly will force them. On the other hand it can be very lucrative to keep the best chips to oneself and only share them with certain non-competitors like the US military. Leveraging superior design and manufacturing technologies has always been Intel's strategy and can once again help them become a product monopolist.
    Reply
  • rluker5
    Marco_il_bello said:
    So if I understood correctly, a month ago Broadcom abandons Intel because the production processes were poor, then after a month news that Broadcom and Nvidia are testing 18th production, then news that they postpone factories for problems beyond 2030 and then new CEO and TO 18th is ready for production, today. Tomorrow will another piece of news come out that will say the opposite?
    Question: when the Chinese claim to have reached Nvidia they shout propaganda news and then it comes to mind, but will this also be propaganda towards the Taiwanese to make them lower their prices?
    I believe that 2030 was for Ohio. There has basically been just one leaker with negative news about Intel's 18A and then responses from more credible sources refuting him. But he will still get stories the next time he leaks.
    Reply
  • rluker5
    This is good. More time for production means more production.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    3en88 said:
    Even if the chips are 2x better than the competition Intel is still a design and end product competitor so I'm not sure if they can attract the big fabless players to their foundry
    The big fabless players are losing millions on every launch because they can't get enough stock fast enough, let alone the bad press.
    Also nvidia has probably maxed out the amount of money they can make from tsmc alone and I bet nvidia likes money.
    Reply
  • passivecool
    Testing is not yield.
    Even I will be very glad to see team blue reach success with a modern node, so the cringe can finally end.
    Reply