Intel: 10nm Yield Is Ahead Of Expectation, 7nm Ponte Vecchio GPU On Track

[Mark-x]

Intel has had a fantastic quarter and the company is literally selling every chip it can make. Turns out there were a few additional nuggets of information buried in the slides as well. Intel has officially stated that their 10nm yields are ahead of expectations and that they are planning at least nine 10nm products for release in 2020. The 7nm lead product, Intel Xe Ponte Vecchio GPU remains on-track for Q4'21.

 

Intel is incredibly skilled at improving architecture while staying on the same node, but considering 14nm has been around for a very long time, the shift to 10nm is eagerly anticipated and will likely be a turning point in the company's history. While there were some rumors earlier on (that Intel readily debunked) it is not clear that 10nm HVM is expected to make landfall in 2020. Intel has further revealed that not only are yields above expectation but they will be rolling out a total of nine 10nm products in 2020.

 

It would also appear that work on Xe-based Ponte Vecchio is going great - which is good news for gamers because this tech would eventually trickle down in the gaming space as well. Intel's Ponte Vecchio GPU for 7nm would be the first significant milestone in the company's ambition to become a GPU player and would constitute the first major diversification. Intel's DG1 GPU is likely one of the 10nm products that will be launched later in the year. As for the other eight products, these are likely going to consist of a mix of the CPU side as well as FPGA/AI based products.

 

While most of this is old news, this is the first time that Intel has given a solid reason for why it is not able to meet capacity - namely that it decided to produce smartphone modems in-house which in return meant that they were not able to focus on the CPU side of things. It is also a fairly plausible explanation for why Intel cannot even meet the demand for 14nm anymore and instead has to resort to extending 22nm products.

 

With Intel chasing a 2x scaling factor for 7nm and shifting to EUV as well, it seems like the company is all set to introduce its first 7nm products (equal to TSMC 5nm) in the fourth quarter of 2021. Bob also further stated that he expects to hit 5nm (equal to TSMC 3nm) by 2H 2024.