Intel plans for 18A chips by 2025 to challenge Samsung, TSMC dominance

US-based chipmaker Intel is poised to overtake Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) with a 18A chip in 2025, according to a news report on Sammobile.

Currently, TSMC is the world’s largest semiconductor fabrication company with Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung among its key clients. It started 7nm chip fabrication in 2017, followed by 5nm chips and 3nm chips in 2019 and 2022, respectively. Korea’s Samsung started 7nm chips production in 2018, followed by 5nm in 2019. It currently makes 3nm chips, which are slated for mass production by the end of this year.

Both Samsung Foundry and TSMC through their process roadmaps have committed to begin 2nm chip fabrication processes by 2025.

How Intel compares to TSMC and Samsung?

While TSMC and Samsung were making strides in reducing the transistor size in their chips, Intel was still stuck with its ‘Intel 10’ (10nm equivalent semiconductor manufacturing process) up until 2020. Intel is already using ‘Intel 7’, its 7nm equivalent manufacturing process in its 12th generation Alder Lake and 13th generation Raptor Lake processors.

According to Sammobile, Intel has said that it is ready to start the production using ‘Intel 4’- 4nm equivalent manufacturing process to make its 14th generation Meteor lake processor from this year.

Reports suggest Intel may keep ready the Intel 20A (2nm) from the first half of 2024, followed by the Intel 18A in the second half of the same year.

Why is transistor size important?

The 18A chip might give Intel a first mover advantage over TSMC and Samsung as transistor size is an important factor in the chip performance and power efficiency. To understand why smaller nanometer chipsets are considered to be better, we need to understand how a semiconductor chip works. Chips are made up of many small silicon-based transistors, which perform calculations to process data.

The term Nanometer refers to the size of an individual transistor so smaller the size, more tightly it can be packed together on a chip freeing up more space to add more transistors. Essentially, more the transistors on a small package, better is the chip performance and power efficiency. That said, even a slight change in chip packaging results in drastic improvement in performance and power efficiency.