Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com November 7 news, Intel today held the Intel Innovation Taipei 2023 Technology Forum, Intel CEO Pat Kissinger on the stage to give a speech.

He said Intel can meet its four-year goal of advancing five-generation process technology on schedule.

Talking about the importance of the "four years and five process nodes" plan, Pat Kissinger admitted that Intel's transformation is based on re-establishing its leading position in transistor performance and energy efficiency."Only by advancing five process nodes within four years, fulfilling our promises and achieving our goals will everyone believe Intel."

CTOnews.com Note: In July 2021, Intel announced its "Four Years Five Process Nodes" plan to regain process leadership by 2025 by advancing Intel 7, Intel 4, Intel 3, Intel 20A and Intel 18A five process nodes over the next four years. The plan also marks a change in the way Intel names process nodes, which no longer represent specific physical features of chips in the semiconductor industry, but still represent improvements in performance and energy efficiency.

The plan is more than halfway through, and Intel is steadily approaching its realization, according to Pat Kissinger: Intel 7 has achieved mass production; Intel 4 has also achieved mass production with EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography) technology, and Intel Core Ultra processors based on this node will be launched on December 14; Intel 3 will be production-ready by the end of 2023, supporting Intel's first two Intel 3-based products, Sierra Forest, an energy-efficient Xeon processor that will be available in the first half of 2024, and Granite Rapids, a performance Xeon processor that will follow. In terms of production steps, Sierra Forest has been taped out of the fab, and Granite Rapids has completed design certification (taped-in) as expected and started trial production in the fab.

Next, Intel 20A is expected to be production-ready in the first half of 2024 and Intel 18A is expected to be production-ready in the second half of 2024. Through these two nodes, Intel will enter the angstrom era. Arrow Lake, Intel's main product on the Intel 20A process node, has been able to run Windows operating systems and has demonstrated excellent functionality. In addition, Intel has reached a key milestone in the Intel 18A process node with the release of version 0.9 of the PDK (Process Design Kit), which will soon be available to external customers. The first products built on Intel's 18A process node will be in fab pilot production in the first half of 2024, including Clearwater Forest for servers, Panther Lake for clients, and an increasing number of Intel foundry service test chips.

Where does Intel's confidence in the "four years and five process nodes" program come from? Pat Kissinger believes that Intel will insist on checking the progress of each node in the process of advancing the plan. Therefore, this plan is not a castle in the air, but a solid and rigorous project.

In addition, Intel has also applied many innovative technologies to new nodes. In addition to accelerating the adoption of EUV technology, Intel has also completed the development of two key technologies, PowerVia backside power supply technology and RibbonFET all-around gate transistor, which will be used in Intel 20A and Intel 18A. By moving the power lines to the back of the wafer, PowerVia improves both transistor power and signal transmission, while RibbonFET allows the transistor channel to be completely surrounded by the gate, further driving transistor size reduction and performance improvement. In Intel's third quarter 2023 earnings call, Pat Kissinger expressed his excitement about these two technologies: "I have been making chips for more than 40 years, and I have never seen such a beautiful transistor. It is a wonderful work of art! "

As for whether Moore's Law is at an end, he clearly responded that "no," he said with the glass substrate developed by Intel, which can be used directly on the substrate, will be the product after Intel 18A process, and there will be other "cool" developments in the future. He said that at present these new technologies are just starting, Intel will continue to launch new products, driving the development of the industrial ecological chain.

He also mentioned that Intel is currently entering the era of small chips, the development trend of 3D packaging is taking shape, more than 120 enterprises have participated in the UCIe Alliance, and test chips integrating TSMC N3E process have been launched.

Intel's commitment is also gaining recognition from third-party customers, even though the plan was once considered "mission impossible" when it was announced. In terms of Intel foundry services, an important customer who committed to Intel 18A and Intel 3 and paid an upfront payment found that Intel foundry services designed and produced chips that performed well in terms of power consumption, performance, and area efficiency, and recently, two new customers focused on high performance computing signed up to use Intel 18A. Previously, Intel also reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Xinsi Technology to develop IP based on Intel 3 and Intel 18A process nodes for Intel internal and external foundry customers, and signed an agreement with Arm involving multi-generation cutting-edge system chip design, enabling chip design companies to develop low-power computing system-on-chip using Intel 18A. Swedish telecom equipment vendor Ericsson will also use Intel 18A to build customized 5G system-on-chip.

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