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At Cisco's AI Summit this month, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan announced that Intel's 14A node will be in risk production in 2028 and volume production in 2029, representing a 1 year slip from prior disclosures of a 2027 risk production start date. The would bring them in line with Samsung's SF1.4 that was delayed to 2029, with both now coming after TSMC's denser A14 node that enters production in 2028. However, Lip-Bu may have been referring to external foundry timelines with more conservative messaging to underpromise and overdeliver.
Below are the timelines for each node showing Intel Foundry's execution issues and delays over the last decade and their habit of overpromising and underdelivering.
At this rate, we may have to wait as late as 2030, the next decade, to buy products on 14A, 4 years after 18A.
P1272 14nm Broadwell 2014
P1274 10nm Ice Lake 2019
P1276 Intel 4 Meteor Lake 2023
P1278 Intel 18A Panther Lake 2026
P1280 Intel 14A 2029/2030 products
That's 5 Nodes in 16 Years!
As I said in Linked in.... It was never coming in 2027. 18A doesnt even fill one fab until 2027. Even Intel Products (IF they do them on 14A) are not coming in 2027.
Right now there are no committed customers. Lets get a customer before we worry about ramp timing. Hopefully Q3 2026 commitment?
Ask Intel what the production wafer start volume is on 18A in Fab 52.
I believe Pat Gelsinger originally said 14A would be in risk production in 2026, then I heard 2027, now Lip-Bu says 2028. The 14A .5 PDK will be available soon. Some companies start design with PDK .5 with TSMC but I am told companies will wait until PDK 1.0 for 14A since it has new technology including HNA-EUV. This makes complete sense to me and I trust Lip-BU will deliver on this.
The big advantage for Intel is that the 14A technology development and manufacturing is US based so, like 18A, 14A Intel will have the technology lead for US based wafers.
TSMC A14 will be in risk production in 2027 with volume production in 2028. You have to remember that TSMC volume production is at a much higher scale and the yield requirements are much higher than Intel. TSMC A14 will start production in Fab 25 in the Central Taiwan Science Park. I would not expect TSMC A14 to be manufactured in Arizona until 2030+.
Lip-Bu mentioned getting traction with customers on 18A and 14A. This I can confirm. AI is continuing to push leading edge fab capacity. TSMC is going to have another great year of 30%+ growth, absolutely.
It's good that Intel's CEO is being realistic with customers about their node role outs. For too long, they haven't. It's a good development. I'm liking the new Intel.
