Intel CEO Lip Buu Tan attends the annual Computex trade show on June 2, 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan.
Cai Xinhan | Reuters
intel has started production of its cutting-edge chip node, and the company is one step closer to a deal to manufacture some of its chips. apple device.
Intel announced Tuesday at the VLSI Symposium in Honolulu, Hawaii, that it will produce a new chip node, the 18A-P.
“This has been a journey, and there is much more work ahead, but we are grateful for the opportunity to share our progress,” Naga Chandrasekaran, head of foundry at Intel, said in a statement. Chandrasekaran said the development “is a demonstration to Intel Foundry’s customers and partners of our long-term commitment to cutting-edge process innovation.”
The 18A-P, first announced last year, is currently in so-called “risk production” and early production with data showing that it will meet customer requirements upon final certification. After years of missteps and low yields, Intel touted 18A as the key to a turnaround that would finally transform the company into a competitive chip maker of non-Intel products.
Intel introduced 18A in its PC chips in January, but the company has yet to secure any major external customers. Analysts say 18A-P may be more likely to be evidence.
Intel said the 18A-P can deliver 9% higher performance or consume 18% less power than the 18A, which the company has been mass producing at its Arizona chip factory since December. The company says the chip has at least 20% increased heat resistance and is fully compatible with existing 18A buildouts.
“Yield is the number one criterion here,” said Neil Shah, a chip analyst at Counterpoint Research. “If we can get a yield of 90% or more in the first month, I think we can get a few more customers.”
Wall Street is expecting a big rebound in business, with Intel’s stock soaring more than 200% this year after surging 84% in 2025. The move was primarily prompted by the US government’s acquisition of a 10% stake in the company in August, followed by Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in September.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan told CNBC in May that he expects commitments from multiple foundry customers in the second half of 2026.
That same month, Intel’s stock price soared nearly 14% after reports that it had reached a tentative agreement to manufacture chips for Apple. Chip analyst Ben Bajarin told CNBC that Apple will likely wait to manufacture 18A-P chips.
One of the big hurdles, Shah said, is that Intel makes chips primarily based on the traditional x86 instruction set, whereas Apple, Google, Amazon and others are built on rival Arm architecture.
“Building Arm chips is something they haven’t done yet,” Shah said. Market leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has “mastered it,” he said.
TSMC is expanding its $165 billion chip manufacturing campus just 80 miles north of Intel’s Arizona factory.
Intel may be more likely to secure key customers first with its advanced packaging technology. This technology is a little-known step in the chip manufacturing process that connects individual chip dies to larger systems in increasingly complex ways. Intel’s EMIB packaging (embedded multi-die interconnect bridge) is comparable to TSMC’s leading CoWoS packaging technology.
“TSMC has a lot of packaging bottlenecks,” Shah said. “This is a huge opportunity at the moment and a no-brainer for Inter.”
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