Bit embarrassing for intel that they had to swallow their pride to get this one made by TSMC. But, by that same token, that alone is good reason to believe it should be highly competitive with everyone else (AMD, Qualcom, Apple) building cpus at TSMC. Particularly for it's specific niche (professional thin and light notebooks). Lets just hope Windows, and the usual OEM bloatware, don't entirely mess up it's potential for excellent battery life.
They hope to bring back from TSMC a part of the CPU fabrication by Q4 2025, with Panther Lake (to be made with the Intel 18A CMOS process), which is planned to replace both Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake H (to be launched in Q1 2025, as the replacement for Meteor Lake).
It is less clear when they hope to bring back the fabrication of the desktop CPUs (Arrow Lake S, to be launched next month, will also be made by TSMC). The current rumors are that only in 2026 Nova Lake might use the future Intel 14A CMOS process, but Intel is still evaluating the alternative to also make it at TSMC, like Arrow Lake S in 2024/2025 and the Arrow Lake S Refresh that is rumored to be the 2025/2026 Intel desktop solution.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 16.6 ms ] threadThis may become a new normal if the currently proposed plans to slash and burn parts of Intel come to fruition.
It is less clear when they hope to bring back the fabrication of the desktop CPUs (Arrow Lake S, to be launched next month, will also be made by TSMC). The current rumors are that only in 2026 Nova Lake might use the future Intel 14A CMOS process, but Intel is still evaluating the alternative to also make it at TSMC, like Arrow Lake S in 2024/2025 and the Arrow Lake S Refresh that is rumored to be the 2025/2026 Intel desktop solution.