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Intel’s relatively new Foundry division (previously known as Intel Foundry Services until today) has just secured a notable order from a major company.according to bloomberg and wall street journal, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that the company will leverage Intel’s latest 18A (1.8nm) manufacturing process for future in-house chip designs. However, given Intel’s process roadmap, this means Microsoft’s new chips likely won’t arrive until 2025.
Neither company has disclosed the nature of the silicon, but Microsoft announced custom-made Azure Maia AI Accelerator and Azure Cobalt 100 CPU server chips last November and plans to use them this year to power its AI services. It is expected to be rolled out “early.” The Cobalt 100 is based on the Arm architecture, and it just so happens that Intel has been optimizing its own 18A process for Arm designs since last April (and later became an Arm investor), making this collaboration possible. There’s a good chance it could lead to something like this: Next generation Cobalt CPU.
In addition to the usual efficiency gains that come with reduced node size, the Intel 18A also offers the “industry’s first backside power solution.” spectrumAs the name suggests, it separates the power interconnect layer from the data interconnect layer above and moves the former below the silicon substrate. This clearly allows for better voltage regulation and lower resistance, which allows for faster logic and lower power consumption, especially when applied to 3D stacking.
CEO Pat Gelsinger said at Intel’s fourth quarter earnings conference. Confirmed “18A will be ready for production in late 2024.” Given that Intel’s own 18A-based processors (“Clearwater Forest” for servers and “Panther Lake” for clients) won’t arrive until 2025. , Microsoft’s next chip will likely arrive at a similar time.
At an Intel event earlier today, executives shared the Intel Foundry Process Technology expansion roadmap. This includes: ASML’s “High NA EUV” (high numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet) lithography system.according to anand techthis 14A leap could help Intel play catch-up after adopting EUV for the Intel 4 (7nm) node, but risk production won’t happen until late 2026.
Intel Foundry is the brainchild of Gelsinger, who launched the division shortly after taking over as CEO in February 2021 as part of an ambitious plan to position Intel against the likes of TSMC and Samsung in the contract chip manufacturing market. I launched it. Before Microsoft, Intel Foundry’s customer list already includes MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Amazon.The company is still the purpose The company aims to become the “second-largest external foundry by 2030” in terms of manufacturing revenue, which the company believes can be achieved as early as this year.
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