Report: Intel struggles with new 18A process as it cuts workers and cancels projects

Intel has a lot riding on "18A," its next-generation manufacturing process for silicon chips that the company claims will help it catch up to the lead that competitors like TSMC have built up over the last few years. With 18A, Intel would return to manufacturing its own processor designs in its own factories, including the upcoming Series 3 Core Ultra chips for laptops (codenamed Panther Lake), after manufacturing parts of all other Core Ultra chips with TSMC. Intel is also offering 18A manufacturing capacity to external chipmakers, a major milestone in former CEO Pat Gelsinger's plan to make Intel a competitive, cutting-edge (and primarily US-based) chip manufacturer for the rest of the industry.

But a Reuters report claims that Intel is struggling to make usable chips on 18A, according to "people who were briefed on the company's test data since late last year." As of this summer, these sources say that just 10 percent of the chips being manufactured on 18A are "up to [Intel's] specifications."

Intel disputed the numbers cited in the report. "Yields are better than that," Intel CFO David Zinsner told Reuters, though neither Zinsner nor Intel provided an alternate figure.

Whether Intel is struggling with 18A or not, the story is easy to believe because it fits a decade-long pattern going back to early delays for Intel's 14 nm process in 2013 and 2014. Intel had finally switched its lineup to the 14 nm process by late 2015, but it was then stuck on that manufacturing process for years (2019–2020 for laptop chips, 2021–2022 for desktop chips).

Through that span, Intel's PR strategy was familiar: insist that things were ramping up well internally and that bugs were being ironed out, express confidence in the roadmap, give itself a little wiggle room on launch dates of actual products, and continue onward.

In this case, Intel told Reuters that its Panther Lake chips are "fully on track" as of July 30. Intel reaffirmed that it would launch Panther Lake using the 18A manufacturing process in the second half of 2025, with more models coming in 2026. These will be the milestones to watch for—Intel could be struggling to ramp up yields on 18A chips, but the struggles could be normal-ish and planned-for ones that don't delay the company's plans any more than they already have.