save the company from the worst crisis in its history

Intel need a breakand Panther Lake could give it to him. The company has just presented its new SoCs, which boast 18A photolithography and will begin to appear in laptops and other devices – portable consoles are clear candidates – in early 2026. We are looking at a promising chip that will also be manufactured massively in the US and that now must face its greatest challenge: meeting expectations.

Why is it important. These new chips from the Panther Lake family (Intel Core Ultra Series 3) are the first created with a 18A photolithographic node (roughly equivalent to 2 nm). This is a critical advance for a company going through the biggest crisis in its history and what you need before achieving success with this launch. According to the manufacturer, this 18A process allows up to 15% more performance per watt and 30% more chip density compared to its predecessors.

Made in USA. The official press release Intel highlights how these chips will be manufactured at the recently opened Fab 52 in Chandler (Arizona, USA). It is expected to be massively produced there at the end of the year, thus achieving that boost to “domestic” chip manufacturing that the US wants to achieve to avoid dependence on China. We are facing a potential milestone for the aspirations of the US Government, which recently bought 10% of Intel to, among other things, try to strengthen the country’s “chip producer” role.

What is Fab 52? It is a mega manufacturing complex that occupies an area of ​​more than 280 hectares (we would have to join together about 400 football fields to cover that area). Kevin O’Buckley, head of the manufacturing business at Intel, Indian that this complex that has cost 32,000 million dollars “has the most advanced semiconductor production technology today on planet Earth.” It is a bold statement, especially considering that TSMC or Samsung have managed to surpass Intel’s technological capacity for years. We will see without with this Fab 52 Intel also manages to fulfill its role as “chip factory for third parties“.

A very promising CPU. The Panther Lake Socs arrive with a CPU configuration that can reach 16 cores that combine high-performance Cougar Cove cores (P-cores) and high-efficiency Darkmont cores (E-cores). CPU performance is up to 40% higher than its predecessors (Lunar Lake) in single-process, and up to 50% higher in multi-process. If it keeps that promise, we will be looking at truly exceptional chips in terms of the leap in performance.

And the GPU will not be left behind. If we want graphical power, there is also good news. The variant with 12 of the new Xe3 cores is theoretically 50% more performant than the Lunar Lake variants with 8 Xe2 cores. Here the number of cores has an influence, of course, but also the behavior of each core itself.

More leeway for AI tasks. The new NPU 5 of these Panther Lake SoCs also promises a notable performance jump and according to Intel it can reach 180 TOPS, when in the past the figure did not exceed 50 TOPS. This is a clear advantage if we want to run local AI models. Support for up to 96 GB of LPDDR5 memory with the new LPCAMM format It’s another demonstration of how these ambitious chips want to make the most of their opportunity.

The most ambitious version of the Panther Lake SoC has 16 cores in its CPU and 12 Xe3 cores in its GPU, among other advanced features…

We do not know models or prices. This preview of what awaits us with Panther Lake has not been complete. The company has not revealed the exact models or prices they will have. These SoCs will be intended for laptops and even portable consoles, and it is very possible that during the CES electronics fair in Las Vegas we will see the first machines based on these chips.

Everything to prove. On paper, of course, these new Intel chips have a promising future, but it will be when they hit the market that they will really be able to demonstrate whether they actually have a chance in this ultra-competitive market. Intel and its leader, Lip-Bu Tanare facing one of the moments that can define their future for two reasons. The first, due to the performance of the chip itself, which we hope does not disappoint. The second, due to this massive commitment to manufacturing in the US, a radical turn for a company that clearly aligns itself with its government in this new stage.

In Xataka | Intel has been making chips just for itself for decades. His only salvation is to make chips for everyone else