Intel says 18A now shipping
Intel is reporting that its 18A process has reached high‑volume manufacturing and is shipping to customers, and the company also announced what it called the world’s thinnest gallium‑nitride chiplet. Market coverage frames these moves as evidence that Intel’s foundry and co‑development options are moving from hope toward execution (investing.com, ).
Intel says its 18A chipmaking process has reached the point where customer projects can ship, a milestone the company has tied to its 2026 turnaround. (intel.com) Chip manufacturing is the factory step that turns circuit designs into silicon, and “high-volume manufacturing” means that step is running at commercial scale rather than in pilot batches. Intel’s 18A page now says the process is “ready for customer projects,” while the company’s platform brief says 18A combines RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery on one node. (intel.com 1) (intel.com 2) Intel says 18A offers up to 15% better performance per watt and up to 30% higher chip density than Intel 3, the company’s prior-generation process in this comparison. Intel also used its Foundry Direct Connect 2025 updates to add 18A variants including 18A-PT and other specialized options for foundry customers. (intel.com 1) (intel.com 2) The announcement lands after months of scrutiny over whether Intel could move 18A from roadmap slides into actual production. Reuters-cited reporting summarized by TrendForce in March said outside customers were watching yields closely as Intel tried to make 18A viable for external business, not just its own chips. (trendforce.com) A chiplet is a smaller block that can be combined with other blocks inside one package, like assembling a system from Lego pieces instead of carving it from one block. Intel says that approach is central to its foundry pitch, and it helped launch the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express standard so those blocks can communicate inside a package. (intel.com) That is where Intel’s second announcement fits: the company said on April 7 that its foundry engineers built a complete gallium nitride chiplet on 300 millimeter silicon wafers with a silicon base just 19 micrometers thick. Intel said the design also includes fully integrated digital control circuits made in one process flow. (community.intel.com) Gallium nitride is a material used in power electronics because it can switch electricity faster and more efficiently than ordinary silicon in many applications. Intel said the ultra-thin chiplet targets graphics processors, servers and wireless systems that need denser power delivery in tighter spaces. (community.intel.com) TrendForce, citing Intel’s April 9 disclosure, said the 19-micrometer substrate is about one-fifth the width of a human hair and was enabled by Intel’s stealth dicing and thinning techniques. The same report said the work is aimed at shrinking power components so they can sit closer to the processors they feed. (trendforce.com) Intel has been arguing for two years that 18A would be the node that restores its manufacturing credibility with both internal product groups and outside customers. With 18A now presented as production-ready and the gallium nitride chiplet positioned as a packaging-and-power add-on, the company is trying to show that its foundry strategy extends beyond one process node. (newsroom.intel.com) (intel.com) (community.intel.com) The next test is whether Intel can turn those technology claims into sustained customer volume and on-time products through 2026. For now, the company has moved the conversation from whether 18A would ship at all to how many customers will build on it. (intel.com) (trendforce.com)
