Intel 18A in great shape: Panther Lake samples running for eight customers

If the interim CEO of Intel at the Barclays technology conference could not in all cases speak openly about strategic issues, they spoke openly about the situation with the development of the Intel 18A process technology – especially since it is better than recent rumors describe.

Image Source: Intel

Let us recall that former Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger already demonstrated engineering samples of Panther Lake processors at a Lenovo event several months ago, and now his successors confirm that such samples are successfully working in test systems of eight different company clients. The Tom’s Hardware resource, which took the trouble to study the statements of Intel’s interim management at yesterday’s Barclays technology conference, recalls the status of the Panther Lake processor family.

They will go into production in 2025 under designations such as Intel Core Ultra 300; their primary purpose will be to work in laptops. Panther Lake processors are considered successors to the Arrow Lake-U/H family, which will be released next month. Panther Lake will be the first Intel processors to use 18A technology for the bulk of their components. Intel will produce more than 70% of Panther Lake components in-house, demonstrating the beginning of the return of products from the TSMC assembly line “home.”

At the Barclays conference, Intel’s current management, represented by David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, said that engineering samples of Panther Lake ES0 processors in the hands of eight of the company’s customers demonstrated the ability to work in test systems: “To give you what -confirmation regarding Panther Lake, we have provided ES0 samples to our customers. Eight of them have already launched systems based on Panther Lake, and that gives you an idea of ​​the good health of silicon and the Foundry division as a whole.”

It is expected that the layout of Panther Lake processors will move the memory controller back to the chip on which the main computing units are located, and this will reduce delays in information transfer compared to Arrow Lake. With up to 16 cores, Panther Lake processors can be considered successors to Arrow Lake rather than Lunar Lake. It is possible that productive Panther Lake cores will use the Cougar Cove architecture, and economical ones will use Skymont/Darkmont. The Panther Lake graphics subsystem, which is credited with up to 12 Celestial generation Xe3 units, will allow Intel to push AMD in the field of integrated graphics in terms of performance. The announcement of Panther Lake processors may be timed to coincide with the June Computex 2025 exhibition, but may be delayed until the second half of the year.