Intel has announced that their cutting-edge 18A process has finally entered "risk production", which implies that the mass-production stage isn't too far away.
Intel's 18A Process Will Witness Its First Integration By Panther Lake SoCs, Others Likely To Adopt It By 2026
Well, it won't be wrong to say that Intel Foundry doesn't have too many chances now, given that division's sluggish performance over the years; however, with the 18A node, IFS does have hope to "live" further on. After much controversy and delays, Team Blue finally announced at its latest Intel Vision 2025 conference that the 18A process has entered risk production and that mass production is expected to take place by the end of this year, which is indeed exciting to hear.
Intel 18A has entered risk production 👏.
This final stage is about stress-testing volume manufacturing before scaling up to high volume in the second half of 2025. #IntelVision pic.twitter.com/SWzoZvbVO5
— Intel News (@intelnews) April 1, 2025
For those unaware of what risk production means, it is a stage usually before mass production. It involves an initial, limited-scale production to assess a process's manufacturability and performance before pushing it onto the mainstream markets. This is an attempt to identify flaws with the production lines and is a decisive factor in determining the yield rates and performance of a particular node. With this, Intel ultimately scales up production to "mass-manufacture" levels, once everything has been validated.
Given that Intel has announced risk production with the 18A, it is safe to say that the process has evolved from all of its prior issues and that Team Blue has the confidence that the node is ready for market deployment. Of course, the first instance of 18A integration will likely be marked by Intel's Panther Lake SoCs, which were announced to enter the retail markets by 2026, so that is where we'll see how 18A has turned out. But, it is indeed exciting to see how far the IFS has come along, with its ambitions to become a leading foundry.
We have discussed Intel's 18A in the past several times, but now might be one of the best times for an in-depth overview, given the hype around it. One of the more monumental achievements with Intel's 18A is the utilization of BSPDN (Backside Power Delivery), which is said to move the power delivery process to the backside of the wafer. Intel's 18A "high-density" versions are now said to report a macro bit density of 38.1 Mb/mm², and overall, things are looking pretty optimistic for the 18A process.
