Intel: 3nm production at TSMC postponed to late 2024?

Intel has apparently postponed its plans for the production of processors with a structural width of just three nanometers. According to reports from the industry in the Far East, the US chip giant does not want to have 3nm processors manufactured by TSMC until the end of 2024.

According to the Taiwan Industry Service DigiTimes, who cites sources from the local PC manufacturers, Intel recently presented its device partners with a more precise roadmap for its product planning for the next few years. According to these plans, TSMC will not take over the production of the graphics unit for the then planned “Arrow Lake” family until the fourth quarter of 2024.

TSMC will initially only build graphics parts for the new Intel chips in 3nm

Previously, Intel reportedly wants to start introducing “Meteor Lake” from the 4th quarter of 2023, with the notebook version of these chips being available first, before the desktop variants will follow from the second quarter of 2024. Even before that, the Raptor Lake-S is supposed to be a refreshed version of the current 13th generation of the Intel Core series.

Also with “Meteor Lake” Intel allegedly already wants to rely on the support of TSMC for the production of parts of the entire package. Although Intel produces the CPU itself in its Intel 4 process, the graphics unit is to be manufactured by TSMC on a 5-nanometer scale. For the years 2025 and 2026, the introduction of two further generations of x86 processors with the code names “Panther Lake” and “Nova Lake” is planned again in cooperation with TSMC as the manufacturer. Overall, the introduction of new chips by Intel with further shrinking structure widths should be postponed somewhat due to the current market situation.

The background, of course, is that demand in the PC market has plummeted in recent months. The PC market has now fallen back to pre-coronavirus levels after a temporary massive boost. For the year 2023, the PC manufacturers foresee little improvement, so that the chip manufacturers such as Intel continue to work on selling off the existing inventories.

See also:

Notebook, Processor, Cpu, Intel, Chip, Laptop, SoC, Chips, x86, System On Chip, Low-End, Pentium, Celeron
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