It’s no secret that the past several years have proven a rough ride for Intel, and it seems the next few could prove similarly testing. Much is riding on the company’s 18A process and Panther Lake architecture, the success of each largely reliant on the other, but reports are emerging that all is not well with Team Blue’s node.
According to Reuters, only a smaller percentage of Panther Lake chips produced with 18A have met customer-facing quality standards. Such a low yield this close to launch will have consequences for Intel’s profitability, as there won’t be enough product to cover manufacturing costs and then some.
Problems with Intel 18A run so deep, that Reuters’ sources claim that Intel may have to sell initial Panther Lake processors at a lower profit margin or at a loss. The company needs to improve yields to ~70-80% for healthy profits, but such an increase in the face of the node’s current state would apparently prove a tall order.
This report is at odds with the confident tone Intel adopted talking to us about Panther Lake and its 18A earlier this year. However, it has since come to light that the company may stagger the CPU launch, likely due to manufacturing woes.
If there’s one company that simply can’t afford further financial woes, it’s Intel. The company’s most recent quarterly performance (and may before it) made for painful reading, leading CEO Lip-Bu Tan to discuss the possible cancellation of Intel 14A and future nodes.
Providing Intel can stick the landing, Panther Lake promises a host of welcome generational improvements. Not only will CPUs in the family sport Xe3 GPUs, they’ll also be more efficient than their Lunar Lake predecessors.
Most enticingly, though, Intel 18A should allow Panther Lake frequencies to be much higher than current generation offerings. This benefit should also extend to Nova Lake, across desktop and mobile.
We can expect both Arrow Lake Refresh and Panther Lake to make their debut later this year. In the meantime, keep following Club386 on Google News to stay in the loop about all things Intel and CPU.
