Intel announces its cutting-edge 18A process node has entered 'risk production'

Intel announced that its bleeding-edge 18A process node has entered "risk production" and its mass production will begin shortly after.

At its recent Intel Vision 2025 event, the company announced that its in-house Intel 18A process node has entered risk production, and that mass production kicks off later this year. Risk production is the stage before mass production, usually involving a limited-scale production to see how the process and its manufacturability and performance are, before it goes into mass production for consumer markets.

The new Intel 18A process node will be first seen with the company's next-gen Core Ultra 300 series "Panther Lake" processors, where it will show off its new semiconductor manufacturing prowess against TSMC.

Intel 18A is an exciting step for the US chipmaker, as it will use BSPDN (Backside Power Delivery) which will move the power delivery process to the backside of the wafer, while we should see Panther Lake later this year on its new Intel 18A process node.

• Read more: Intel's new Arizona fab testing 18A (1.8nm-class) wafers, major milestone for Made in America

Intel's Kevin O'Buckley, the Senior Vice President of Foundry Services, said: "Risk production, while it sounds scary, is actually an industry standard terminology, and the importance of risk production is we've gotten the technology to a point where we're freezing it. Our customers have validated that, 'Yep, 18 A is good enough for my product.' And we have to now do the 'risk' part, which is to scale it from making hundreds of units per day to thousands, tens of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands. So risk production [..] is scaling our manufacturing up and ensuring that we can meet not just the capabilities of the technology, but the capabilities at scale".