Intel is reportedly facing a rather serious decision regarding their semiconductor chip manufacturing technology. Before Pat Gelsinger, the company's former CEO, left the company, he had initiated the 5N4Y project which aimed to advance Intel's ability to produce processing chips using more modern processes as quickly as possible.
This year, Intel was supposed to start using the 18A (1.8nm) process for their processing chip components, and to produce Panther Lake processing chips for laptops, and to produce data center processing chips for companies such as Amazon and Microsoft.
Lip-Bu Tan, Pat Gelsinger's successor, has made many cuts to curb the huge losses that Intel is facing. Recently, he reportedly wants to take another drastic step, which is to stop the development of 18A, and focus on the 14A process.
This is not to say that Intel will shut down the 18A process outright, but it will not be used for the purpose of producing semiconductor chips for other companies. Intel's Panther Lake processors and chips for companies like Amazon and Microsoft will continue, but for the time being, Tan seems to want to accelerate research and development of the 14A process technology for future customers.
If you're feeling like history is repeating itself for Intel, it's because Pat Gelsinger did the same thing, deciding to stop development of the 20A process and move straight to 18A technology. This decision cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and the hope was that the process would bring back Intel's glory days as a semiconductor chipmaker.
Unfortunately, a number of issues with semiconductor chip production volumes and other issues have caused the 18A process to be temporarily halted, and TSMC will begin producing processors using their N2 (2nm) process starting this year, which is seen to have a much higher, and more efficient, chip production rate than Intel.
Worryingly for Intel, it appears that they will still be using the N2 manufacturing process for their Nova Lake desktop processors, in addition to manufacturing them using their own 14A process.
For now, Intel has yet to make an official statement on this matter, which is expected to be discussed at an investor meeting soon. The issue for Intel is that if they agree to do this, the billions of dollars of investment made to develop the 18A process will be a huge loss, and all of that investment and expense will have to be written off.