New CPU is meant to be made on Intel 18A. But is it?
So, you could argue, who cares? Let's at least get Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake out the door and see what they're like before we get too excited by Lunar Lake.
However, the thing is that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has shown Lunar Lake not just booting into Windows, but running actual workloads. More to the point, according to Intel's own public roadmaps, Lunar Lake is based on Intel's 18A process tech. Again, that's three nodes out from the current Intel 7 node used for its most advanced available CPUs. Before Intel 18A arrives, Meteor Lake will roll out on Intel 4 and Arrow Lake on Intel 20A.
Possibly more critical is that Intel has Lunar Lake down as being based on both Intel 18A and an unnamed external node, almost certainly a current or future TSMC node. In other words, it's possible that the Lunar Lake chip shown running AI code didn't have any Intel-made silicon. That's the thing. Gelsinger didn't say anything about the silicon in the Lunar Lake demo chip.
As with Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake will be a chiplet design. Almost certainly some of Lunar Lake's chiplets will be made by TSMC. But it's as possible the demo chip was all TSMC as it was Intel-based, and therefore doesn't by itself give any insight into the health of Intel's 18A node. Indeed, there are rumours that most configurations of Arrow Lake desktop CPUs, due out next year, will be made using all TSMC silicon.
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