TSMC receives order for 2nm from Intel, should be for the compute tiles on Nova Lake CPU

Intel has reportedly placed 2nm orders with TSMC for its upcoming Nova Lake CPUs, outsourcing the compute tile to TSMC, confirming rumors from over a year ago that Intel would be indeed using TSMC 2nm for its Nova Lake processors.

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In a new report from Taiwan Economic Daily, Intel has reportedly outsourced the compute tile for Nova Lake to TSMC to fab on their new 2nm process node (N2). Intel has been recently bragging about its new in-house Intel 18A process node, yet the company has opted to ask TSMC to make its most advanced processor to date: Nova Lake.

I have been reporting on Nova Lake for a few years now, writing back in January 2024 from rumors all the way back in August 2021 that Nova Lake was the biggest architectural change in CPU architecture since the Core architecture was introduced in 2006. Intel is working on building an entirely new architecture from the ground up much like Ryzen with up to 50% CPU performance improvements from Lunar Lake.

AMD recently announced it was the first customer of TSMC's bleeding-edge 2nm process node with its 6th-generation EPYC "Venice" processors, while Apple will use TSMC's new 2nm process node for its next-gen A20 processor for its next-gen iPhone 18 smartphones. Intel is now joining the 2nm race, using TSMC's fresh new node for its Nova Lake CPUs with a bunch of hype behind them.

Intel will use its in-house Intel 18A process node for its new Panther Lake SoCs and Clearwater Forest Xeons, on either side of Nova Lake -- Panther Lake is mobile, Clearwater Forest is high-end Xeon, while Nova Lake will be the next-gen Core CPUs for desktop PCs.