As the proposer of Moore’s Law, Intel can also be said to be the most staunch defender of Moore’s Law, and has repeatedly stated that semiconductor manufacturing processes will continue to improve. After mastering the 5th generation CPU process in the past 4 years, Intel has also started the research and development of the next two generations of CPU process, and the goal is approaching the 1nm process.
Intel’s 5th generation CPU processes are: Intel 7, Intel 4, Intel 3, Intel 20A and Intel 18A. Among them, Intel 7 has been launched on the 12th-generation Core processor in 2021, and Intel 4 will be launched on the 14th-generation Core processor in the second half of this year. In addition, EUV extreme ultraviolet lithography will be used for the first time.
Intel 3 is an upgraded version of Intel 4, and Intel 20A and later 18A are major upgrades, which are equivalent to competitors’ 2nm and 1.8nm processes. leadership position.
After that, Intel’s blueprint has not yet mentioned the new process, but the latest news indicates that Intel has started the definition and development of the next two generations of process, but there is no clear information. According to the chip process planning blueprint previously released by IMEC, the 2nm process is followed by the 14A, or 1.4 nm process, which is expected to be launched in 2026, and the A10 process, which is 1 nm, will be launched in 2028.
The next two generations of processes that Intel will develop should also be 1.4 nm and 1 nm. The specific naming still has to wait for the official confirmation, after all, it is still early. After 2 nm, the production equipment needs to be upgraded, and the current EUV lithography machine will not be efficient at that time. ASML is expected to launch the next-generation EUV lithography machine EXE:5000 series with High NA technology in 2026, which will increase the NA index from The current 0.33 is increased to 0.55, which further improves the micro-image resolution.
However, the cost of the next-generation EUV lithography machine will also rise sharply. The current price is about 150 million US dollars, and the price is expected to exceed 400 million US dollars.