Intel is one of the few semiconductor chip makers and manufacturers that are seen to have technology advanced enough to compete with TSMC in modern semiconductor chip production.
Recently, the company has announced that their two new CPUs built using the 18A process (1.8nm or 18 Angstroms) have been shown and can activate the operating system. These two processing chips are Panther Lake, their next generation AI laptop processing chip, and also Clearwater Forest, their latest server machine processing chip.
Technically, the biggest difference in the processing chip built with this 18A process is the use of RibbonFET transistors that will replace the FinFET used in the construction process of all types of processing chips before.
RibbonFET is Intel's implementation of the Gate All Around FET (GAAFET), where wide ribbon-shaped transistors can be overlapped that help in higher electrical energy flow, but with a lower amount of voltage.
As for the Panther Lake processing chip, it looks like it will keep the same in-chip memory usage as what was introduced on Lunar Lake, and according to Intel, the initial memory speeds shown are very encouraging.
Like the Intel 20A process, this 18A process will also be used by other companies that want to develop advanced processing chips, and will not only be used to develop Intel's own processing chips.
As said before, Intel expects that both the Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest processing chips will be introduced around the middle of 2025, just like what was done with the Lunar Lake, Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids chips.