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Shortly after TSMC announced plans to mass-produce A14 in 2028, Intel appears ready to compete with an aggressive roadmap for 14A and 18A. According to Intel’s press release, Team Blue is preparing two more 18A variants and has begun sharing early 14A Process Design Kits (PDKs) with lead customers.
TechNews and the Economic Daily News, citing Intel’s roadmap, report that 14A and 14A-E are likely to kick off risk production in 2027. As Wccftech points out, Intel’s use of backside power delivery in 14A puts it two generations ahead of TSMC. While 18A introduced the first-gen PowerVia, the second-gen version—now called PowerDirect—will be implemented in 14A.
At Intel Foundry Direct Connect 2025, Intel announced it’s working with lead customers on 14A, which promises a 15–20% performance boost and 25–35% lower power consumption compared to 18A. Multiple customers have expressed their intent to build test chips on the new node, according to Intel.
18A-P in 2026, 18A-PT Follows in 2028
According to Intel’s plan, 18A is now in risk production and expected to reach volume manufacturing this year. As noted by the Economic Daily News, Intel previously announced it will launch the Panther Lake laptop processor using 18A in the second half of 2025. In early 2026, the Clearwater Forest server chip—Intel’s first server product built on 18A—is also set to debut, the report adds.
Notably, another major highlight was Intel’s new 18A derivatives: 18A-P and 18A-PT, which are performance-focused versions of the original 18A node, promising even greater gains.
18A-P is set to launch around 2026, followed by 18A-PT in 2028, the TechNews report indicates.
18A-PT Poised to Take on TSMC with Foveros Direct 3D Hybrid Bonding
As per Wccftech, 18A-PT particularly stands out, as it will be Intel’s first node to support Foveros Direct 3D hybrid bonding, positioning it to take on TSMC’s advanced interconnect technologies.
The report suggests that with its hybrid bonding approach, Intel will be capable to stack multiple chiplets using TSVs. The spotlight, however, is on its Foveros Direct 3D bonding technology, which is aiming for a bonding pitch of under 5 microns—going head-to-head with TSMC’s SoIC-X, which features a 9-micron pitch, as per Wccftech.
On the mature-node front, Intel Foundry has completed its first 16nm tapeout and is now working with customers on a 12nm node co-developed with Taiwan’s UMC, according to its press release.
(Credit: Intel, April 2025)
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(Photo credit: Intel)