So many sketchy rumors and “leaks” right now (like the compute dies of MTL being made by TSMC… I just cannot imagine them dual-designing MTL compute dies for both Intel and TSMC processes), but likely there’s some moving around.
I put my bet on the EUV squeeze for ramp up of Intel 4/3/20A being very real, and combined with a rumor that Intel 4 cannot clock as high as the optimized Intel 7 (of course it can’t), I think Intel is prioritizing Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest on Intel 3 over any client platform.
That then would set them up to again use another client product as the test bed for their next-gen RibbonFET process on 20A, which would be Arrow Lake.
In early ‘22 they claimed 20A would be manufacturing ready in 1H ’24, and so a refreshed RPL-S in 2H ‘23 and MTL-P/U in Q4 ‘23 would perfectly align with an ARL-S launch in 2H ‘24 (1 year out from RPL-S refresh, 6 months from MTL-P/U).
From all the way back in early 2020 everyone said it would take until 2024 for Intel to get their house in order, and that appears to continue to be true… but as for these rumors, Intel has made no change to the February ‘22 publicly detailed process roadmap and I think they would have to if these rumors were true. Perhaps we’ll hear more at next earnings, but I doubt it. Perhaps likely is not Arrow Lake that’s moving to TSMC N3, but Lunar Lake that’s moving to a more advanced version of N3,
like their N3X…