Intel Touts Incredible Gains for Its Critical Intel 18A Process

The key to Intel's (NASDAQ: INTC) turnaround is the Intel 18A manufacturing process, the final process in the company's original five-nodes-in-four-years plan. Intel will not only make Intel 18A available to foundry customers, but it will also use the process for many of its own chips, including Panther Lake for PCs and Clearwater Forest for servers. Intel 18A has the potential to entirely close the performance and efficiency gap with foundry leader TSMC.

While the turmoil at Intel over the past year, which included the surprise "retirement" of former CEO Pat Gelsinger, has put a cloud of uncertainty over Intel's foundry ambitions, the company provided some new details on the Intel 18A process at the 2025 Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits. The figures from the company paint a rosy picture of Intel 18A's future.

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Big gains driven by new technologies

Intel 18A features two key technologies: Gate-all-around (GAA) transistors and backside power delivery. The new GAA transistor architecture represents the biggest change Intel has made since the FinFET architecture was introduced in 2011. The Intel 3 process, which Intel uses for its current lineup of server CPUs, was the final process to use FinFET transistors.

Performance and efficiency gains from the new transistor architecture are paired with additional gains from Power Via, which is Intel's implementation of backside power delivery. Power Via moves power interconnects to the backside of the chip from the traditional location on the top of the chip, which reduces wasted power by eliminating conflicts with other types of wiring. The Intel 18A process is the first in the industry to feature backside power delivery, and TSMC won't have an answer until sometime in 2026 at the earliest.

According to Intel's data, the Intel 18A process can deliver 25% higher frequencies compared to Intel 3 at the same voltage or a 36% reduction in power usage at the same frequency. Intel 3 itself delivered significant performance and efficiency gains over the aging Intel 7 process, which makes the leap enabled by Intel 18A all the more impressive.

Questions remain, but this is great news for Intel

From a performance and efficiency standpoint, Intel 18A is starting to look like a home run for Intel. The big remaining question is whether the company will be able to scale the process with acceptable yields. Some percentage of chips on a wafer end up being defective, and pushing down that percentage is critical to making Intel 18A affordable for foundry customers and profitable for Intel.

There have been some rumors that Intel is close to securing Nvidia as a foundry partner under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Given Intel's data on the Intel 18A process, that rumor certainly isn't farfetched. Operating U.S.-based factories is also a plus, given the push from the Trump administration to reshore manufacturing.

Intel 18A could also give Intel an edge in the PC and server CPU markets. Particularly in the server CPU market, where Intel has recently gained some ground with Granite Rapids, the next-generation version of Intel's mainline server CPU could have a manufacturing edge over rival AMD.

Intel still has plenty of work left to do in scaling up Intel 18A and securing more foundry customers. But with the performance and efficiency characteristics looking good, Intel 18A has the potential to give Intel a much-needed boost.

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Timothy Green has positions in Intel. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short May 2025 $30 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.