Intel discloses the Intel 20A process

Recently, Intel announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2022. Intel officially disclosed the latest progress of its process technology.

  • Intel 4: Mass production in progress; tape-out expected in Q4 with Meteor Lake processors
  • Intel 3: Still on schedule; Intel 3 and Intel 4 are the first process nodes to use EUV extreme ultraviolet lithography and will deliver significant improvements in transistor performance per watt and compute density

Intel 20A and 18A: First in-house test chips tape-out; production of in-house test chips in the fab for a major potential foundry customer

Those who are familiar with the semiconductor industry may know that the Intel 20A process is roughly at the level of 2nm in the industry. The other two advanced chip manufacturers in the industry, Samsung and TSMC, are still focusing on the 3nm process, and there is no obvious progress in the 2nm process. For example, Samsung only announced some technical solutions for 2nm, and TSMC's 3nm process even has news of delays and delays. At this time, Intel announced that the first batch of Intel 20A internal test chips has been taped out, which will undoubtedly have a certain impact on the other two. So can Intel rely on the "Intel 20A" process to return to the dominance of chip manufacturing?

Intel 20A process

Although the Intel 20A process is roughly at the level of 2nm in the industry, even if the industry is at the same technology node (for example, both are 2nm processes), the gap between different manufacturers is still very large. Moreover, Intel's process characteristics are far from the other two, so it is still very inaccurate to directly understand "Intel 20A" as a 2nm process.

At present, the other two 2nm processes have not made obvious progress, but they can still be roughly estimated in combination with the process roadmap and other materials.

  • Transistor density: Samsung 2GAE (2nm) < Intel 20A < TSMC N2 (2nm) < Intel 18A
  • Performance: Samsung 2GAE (2nm) < TSMC N2 (2nm) < Intel 20A < Intel 18A
  • On the PPA side: Samsung 2GAE (2nm) < TSMC N2 (2nm) < Intel 20A < Intel 18A

Note: PPA is the abbreviation of Performance, Power, and Area, and it is an evaluation of the comprehensive performance of the chip manufacturing process.

Whether Intel 20A is king fried depends on the release time

The Intel 20A process has already started internal test tape out, but it is still far from full mass production. Therefore, whether Intel 20A can become a king bomb depends on the mass production time of Intel 20A on the one hand, and the mass production time of TSMC and Samsung's 2nm process on the other hand.

However, it seems that Intel's progress is relatively smooth at present, so we assume that Intel 20A will be released as scheduled, and analyze based on this assumption.


According to current news, Intel's 20A process is expected to be mass-produced in 2024, while TSMC and Samsung's 2nm process is expected to be mass-produced in 2025. So in 2024, Intel 20A's main competitors are Samsung 3GAP and TSMC N3E or N3P. If this is the case, the Intel 20A process is almost a complete victory compared to the other two 3nm processes.
  • Transistor density: Samsung 3GAP (3nm) < TSMC N3E (3nm) = TSMC N3P (3nm) < Intel 20A
  • Performance: Samsung 3GAP (3nm) < TSMC N3E (3nm) < TSMC N3P (3nm) < Intel 20A
  • On the PPA side: Samsung 3GAP (3nm) < TSMC N3E (3nm) < TSMC N3P (3nm) < Intel 20A
  1. If the 2nm processes of Intel, Samsung, and TSMC are all released as scheduled, then Intel 20A is the king bomb, and Intel's process will maintain the "world first" position for a period of time.
  2. Although Intel 20A is only "internal test chip has been taped out", it is still relatively fast compared to the other two 2nm processes.
  3. At the 2nm technology node, both TSMC and Intel use the new transistor structure for the first time (RibbonFET for Intel and NanoSheet for TSMC), so theoretically there will be a greater improvement than the previous generation processors.

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