Qualcomm has terminated the development of processor products using Intel’s 20A node
Previously announced to advance the Intel 20A process in 2024, and to collaborate with Qualcomm to manufacture processor products using this process, it was even subsequently clarified that this process will enter the preparatory production stage as early as January 2024. The Intel 18A process can be launched even earlier, in the second quarter of the same year. However, in a recent research report by market analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it was alleged that Qualcomm has already terminated the development of processor products using Intel 20A process technology, possibly due to excessively high investment costs.
Currently, Qualcomm is advancing 3nm process technology in collaboration with TSMC and Samsung. However, considering recent layoffs and the overall decline in the smartphone market, there are no additional resources to invest in developing processor products with Intel 20A process technology. Particularly, as Intel 20A adopts the all-new RibbonFET transistor technology and PowerVia power design, it signifies that processors designed by Qualcomm using this process must entail more cost for testing and adjustment. This might prompt Qualcomm to decide to maintain its original cooperation model with TSMC and Samsung for process technology.
Should Qualcomm’s collaboration be lost, it will clearly have a significant impact on Intel, meaning that high-end processor products’ foundry clients will turn to TSMC or Samsung. At the same time, it represents that their advanced process technology will lack robust client product validation.
Nevertheless, Intel’s current challenges might also include the processors codenamed Arrow Lake, initially announced to be produced with the Intel 20A process. Subsequent reports suggest that Intel might be preparing to produce them with TSMC’s N3 process, even contemplating abandoning the production of the Arrow Lake processors with the Intel 20A process, entrusting all to TSMC for foundry production.
At this stage of development, Intel’s 7nm process technology has already been extensively applied in Intel’s commercially available processor products. The processors codenamed Meteor Lake are expected to be manufactured using Intel’s 4nm process later this year.
On the other hand, the computing products codenamed Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest, crafted with Intel’s 3nm process, are anticipated to enter mass production in the second half of this year. Plans are even laid out to advance the next consumer-grade processor product with Intel 18A in the latter half of 2024, as well as subsequent server-grade computing products, and to provide foundry services with this new process technology.
