Intel's 14A node will enter risk production in 2028, while 10A and 7A nodes are on the roadmap

Intel's Foundry business has been slowly ramping up over the past year or so. At long last, Intel has started shipping its Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake chips built on the in-house 18A production node. Intel's manufacturing operations got off to a slow, rocky start, but the latest earnings show that the Foundry brought in $5.1 billion in revenue in Q1 2026.

It looks like the Foundry is up and running like a well-oiled machine, since Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has confirmed that the company is on track to meet its goals. Speaking at the J.P. Morgan TMT Conference in Boston, Lip-Bu Tan stated that Intel now forecasts the 14A node to enter risk production in 2028, with high-volume manufacturing following in 2029. The company plans to offer the 14A node to external customers in addition to its own in-house usage.

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Intel has also recently secured Tesla as a major external customer for its next-gen 14A node, a huge deal for its manufacturing ambitions. CEO Lip-Bu Tan previously expressed frustration with the challenges the Foundry faced, stating that securing an external customer was almost "existential" to the company's continued existence in the manufacturing business. With 14A now on track for risk production in 2028, the tides seem to have turned in Intel's favor.

The CEO also noted that this timeline is similar to TSMC's, as its A14 node is expected to enter risk production around the same time. Therefore, the two manufacturing giants are expected to be direct competitors, which will be interesting to see after Intel's decades of loyalty to TSMC. Currently, the 14A node is at the 0.5 PDK stage, but it needs to reach PDK 0.9 before customers will submit their final designs.

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Beyond 14A, the company is on track to meet the timelines of 10A and 7A nodes, per CEO Lip-Bu Tan. However, these nodes are still in very early stages of conception, and are not expected to enter pre-production until 14A has attained trial status. That said, these future production processes have been formally added to the roadmap so Intel can continue to evolve and advance its manufacturing business.

The CEO also claimed that Intel was revealing its long-term manufacturing roadmap so early because many customers rely on these roadmaps to make critical business decisions years in advance. Intel is trying to rival TSMC by mirroring its long-term approach, hoping to attract customers and build a lasting relationship with them. It may even work, considering we have massive clients like Apple considering Intel over TSMC for their next-generation chips.