The world was tired of depending on TSMC to manufacture all its chips. This is what is causing Intel’s great resurrection

Who has seen you and who sees you, Intel. The legendary semiconductor firm seems to be leaving behind its painful journey through the desert, and the latest news points to a true resurrection. The signature has achieved a spectacular contract to manufacture three million Google TPUs, and Nvidia is also studying the possibility of use Intel 18A node for future multi-die GPU designs. This is spectacular news for the company. Promising future, at last. The agreement with Google’s cloud division is a huge boost for the chip manufacturing business (foundry) from Intel. This deal will see Intel produce millions of AI chips at its advanced 3-nanometer node. With it, the firm achieves a decisive step to compete with TSMC, which until now was the absolute reference for those who wanted to access advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes. There is another crucial geopolitical factor here: part of these chips will be produced in the US, which helps in the objective of not depending so much on Asian countries for this process. Flirting with Nvidia. But Nvidia also seems to be interested in Intel’s 18A photolithographic process. The company led by Jensen Huang is considering the use of this node for its future multi-die architectures for its GPUs. Nvidia has managed to become TSMC’s main customer, but this manufacturer cannot satisfy Nvidia’s demand, so this company is looking for plans B, and Intel is serving it one on a plate. The signature by the way, already bought 4% of Intel in September 2025, so it is the first interested in Intel doing well. The PowerVia revolution. There are two big technical arguments that are apparently convincing Google and Nvidia. The first, the transistors RibbonFET. The second, even more important, PowerVia technology. This system is a qualitative leap because it physically separates the power and signal lines from the transistors, which avoids bottlenecks and improves both performance and efficiency of the CPUs that use this technology. Chip sovereignty. This decision by Google and Nvidia’s plan respond in part to the pressures that the US government is doing—and boosting with its CHIPS Act— to recover technological sovereignty and avoid dependence on foreign countries. Both companies know that 90% of the planet’s advanced chips depend on that island called Taiwan, and taking advantage of Intel’s renewed capacity is a great opportunity for kill two birds with one stone. They reduce their dependence on TSMC, and comply with the demands of the US government. War makes strange allies. The current situation is unique, because it is causing companies that competed fiercely in the field of hardware (Intel and Nvidia) to now be forced to collaborate out of pure necessity. Intel needs clients of this type to demonstrate to investors that its division foundry can operate independently of its consumer processor or server division. And Google and Nvidia in turn need Intel to break manufacturing monopoly of semiconductors that TSMC had. Intel finally resurrects. The big winner of these agreements is Intel, which has gone through a really compromising stage but has for a year has not stopped growing. We can see it in its valuation on the stock market. A year ago its shares were trading at $20.68, and now they are trading at $107.04 and with these agreements that value may continue to improve. Good for Intel. Image | Intel In Xataka | Bill Gates has X-rayed Intel. And his diagnosis is overwhelmingly accurate.

Intel’s future is linked to the success of a single chip manufacturing node: 18A technology

Intel is facing one of the most difficult stages Of all its history. And its story is not exactly brief. In fact, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce founded this company more than half a century ago, in 1968. As we have explained in other articles, The future of factories and Intel chips packaging and validation centers is uncertain. However, it is possible that these facilities are finally incorporated into a joint company Managed by Intel, TSMCand, perhaps, by some other company of the integrated circuit industry. Anyway, the short -term competitiveness of this company is closely linked to the success of a single semiconductor manufacturing technology: 18A photolithography. Ben Sell, Vice President of Intel Technology Development, confirmed At the end of last September that the 18A node already has the maturity necessary to enter large -scale production in 2025. and also assured that it will benefit from the resources that have been reallocated since the 20A node. In the current scenario the 18A node will be the true protagonist. That is not the slightest doubt. More transistors. More performance. And less consumption This statement by Joseph Bonetti, main manager of Intel engineering programs, expresses very well The important thing that is the 18A node for this company: “Intel leaders, Board of Directors of Intel and Donald Trump administration, please do not sell or give the control of Intel Foundry to TSMC just when Intel is taking the technological front and starting to take off. It would be a terrible and demoralizing error.” Bonetti also maintains that Intel is not lagging for its competitors, and that the advances that their engineers are achieving in the field of chips production are very important. Bonetti does not expressly mention the 18A integration technology, but his statement is supported by it because right now is the asset that Intel has to compete with TSMC and Samsung in the market for the production of integrated circuits in a year in which 2 Nm photolithographies They will take off yes or yes. In the last months Intel has been revealing some of the characteristics of this integration technology, but just a few hours ago and as a prelude to the semiconductor conference ‘2025 Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circu has made public more interesting data. Powervia proposes to physically separate the feed lines and signal signal within each integrated circuit Lithography 18a is erected above all about two essential innovations: Ribbonfet Gate-Lall-Around (GAA) transistors and energy delivery technology Powervia. The purpose of this last improvement is to solve the limitations imposed by the introduction in the integrated circuit of smaller transistors, which are also together more. This scenario causes that within each chip the power lines and signal compete for the same resources, which triggers the appearance of bottlenecks that perceptibly limit the performance and energy efficiency of a CPU. The purpose of Powervia technology is precisely to solve this problem. And to achieve this, what proposes is to physically separate the power lines and signal signal. So far both lived in the same physical space, but From Intel 20A lithographythat It was commercially dismissed In September 2024, the distribution of transistors and food and signal will acquire the form of a sandwich. In this way the transistors will be housed in the center, while the feed lines will reside in a lower layer and those of signal in an upper layer. In any case, for us, the users, the most interesting thing is to know that Intel promises that their lithography 18a will deliver a 25% higher performance using the same voltage as the integration technology Intel 3, as well as a 36% lower energy consumption by using the same frequency and the same voltage. And by reducing this last parameter and moving from 1.1 volts to 0.75 volts, lithography 18a delivers a performance of 18% higher and a consumption of 38% lower. It sounds good, but we should not ignore that This information comes from Intel itself. Whether it is evident that we are interested in consumers that both Intel and TSMC or Samsung have the best state possible. Image | Intel More information | Intel In Xataka | Intel has confirmed that the 20A node will be skipped to reduce expenses. The 18A node will enter production in 2025

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