🏭 Intel CFO Confirms Strong 18A Yield Progress and Rising Customer Interest
Intel Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner shared new updates on the company’s foundry and process roadmap at the UBS Global Technology and AI Conference. He confirmed that Panther Lake is already in mass production for a January launch, and that profitability still hinges on the 18A process reaching its target yield.
Zinsner emphasized that 18A’s yield curve continues to improve steadily and consistently with industry norms, indicating that the node is transitioning from lab-stage viability to true mass-production readiness. Variability in equipment tuning and linewidth control is stabilizing, pointing toward a predictable ramp.
📘 PDK Maturity and Expanding Customer Engagement #
Zinsner highlighted meaningful progress on the 18A-P and 18A-PT nodes, stating that both Process Design Kits (PDKs) have reached high maturity.
A mature PDK signals that layout rules, parasitic models, and process variation windows have stabilized—key prerequisites for customers evaluating migration risk. Intel noted that external design teams have proactively re-engaged, suggesting that the industry now views the 18A tape-out window as practically usable, not a showcase node.
📦 Advanced Packaging Becomes a Key Growth Engine #
Intel’s advanced packaging technologies are emerging as a major accelerator for customer adoption. Several customers have already completed successful trial runs on EMIB, EMIB-T, and Foveros, achieving stable production metrics.
These 2.5D/3D solutions help bypass the industry-wide CoWoS bottleneck, which has faced constraints due to substrate and carrier board capacity limits. Customers are turning to Intel for two primary reasons:
- Foveros reduces interconnect length and improves thermal performance in stacked designs.
- EMIB avoids the need for oversized interposers, benefiting chiplet-based architectures.
While Zinsner admitted that Foveros capacity expansion has not fully met expectations due to equipment and process constraints, this has ironically accelerated customer interest. In a tight supply environment, any alternative stacking capacity becomes significantly more valuable, shifting customer relationships toward longer-term planning.
🤝 Intel Reinforces Commitment to the Foundry Strategy #
Addressing external speculation, Zinsner reiterated that Intel is not considering selling or spinning off its foundry business. Instead, Intel is deeply engaged with customers on co-developing process and packaging roadmaps.
With 18A yield trending upward and packaging demand rising, Intel management believes the foundry business outlook is stronger today than earlier in the year.
🔍 Conclusion #
Intel’s latest disclosures show that:
- 18A is on track toward manufacturable yields, though continued convergence will determine short-term mass-production viability.
- Advanced packaging—EMIB, EMIB-T, Foveros—is becoming a primary driver for customer onboarding due to its available capacity and technical advantages.
- The foundry business’s current momentum is rooted not in a dramatic node lead, but in Intel’s unique combination of process + packaging availability, a compelling value amid global supply constraints.
Together, these factors signal that Intel’s foundry strategy is gaining clearer, more durable traction across both internal products and external customers.