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Intel: 18A to enter HVM in H2 25

hist78 said:
Something is very strange with the ">1.5m Lunar Lake shipped in 2024".

Intel officially released Lunar Lake in early September 2024, and major Intel OEM partners (DELL, HP, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Samsung, etc.) launched Lunar Lake-based notebooks by the end of September 2024. Considering that these OEM partners need to procure Lunar Lake processors several months in advance for their contract manufacturing partners (like Foxconn) to meet the September product release date and the Thanksgiving/Christmas shopping season, how can Intel ship only >1.5 million units of Lunar Lake processors in 2024?

They also need to secure enough volume for 1Q2025 notebook production. The >1.5 million unit figure for 2024 seems far too small for a major product launch and inadequate to cover the year-end shopping season globally and 1Q2025 OEM production needs.

To put it into perspective, 51.6 million notebooks were shipped globally in 2023.
Click to expand...
Intel said LNL was meant/designed to be a niche product but due to its positive reception, they increased the volume to 3x now. With enterprise vPro models launched now. Shipments will accelerate further than 1.5 million.

But my guess is Intel will try to push ARL-U models to the enterprise segment more than LNL because, ARL-U (another low power CPU for thin and light laptops with decent battery life)is basically a MTL-U ported to Intel 3 and is much more beneficial for Intel's financials.


Intel had shipped >20 million units of AI PC (includes MTL) by the time Pat Gelsinger did the keynote at Lenovo event in October 2024 (the event where he handed over the ES0 sample of PTL to Lenovo CEO). They still expect to ship 100 million units of AI PCs (includes MTL, LNL, ARL, may include PTL too in small numbers) by end of 2025 (including 2024 shipments).
 

Intel shows off working Panther Lake systems at CES — Celestial Xe GPU cores power Intel sneak peek​

By Dallin Grimm Contributions from Paul Alcorn published 2 hours ago

Intel's CES 2025 exhibition features a stack of computers from the near future; six Panther Lake and Celestial-based systems. The next-generation CPU architecture and next-next-gen Celestial Xe GPU cores arrived at the show with little fanfare, receiving little mention in Intel's CES press release or keynote address.

The ODM systems run on early 12-core Panther Lake CPUs, and contain 12 Xe-core internal GPUs on the Xe3 (codenamed Celestial) architecture. The demo PCs also contain an NPU, though the specs of the NPU are unknown beyond their shared 18GB of memory with the internal GPU. The demo PCs all run on 32GB of RAM.

The functionality of the CES demo units is fairly low beyond exploring Task Manager. Graphics drivers are early enough in development that the PCs at idle only display still images. Intel shared that the PCs are running on A0 silicon (the first-ever revision of the silicon), making the 24 hours of uptime listed on one unit's Task Manager all the more impressive.

Three mini dev kits, two in a NUC-like form factor, and the other sporting a wide mini-LED display, bear the Intel logo. The ODM laptops come from Wistron, Pegatron, and Compal, all notable Taiwanese ODM manufacturers with close ties to Intel OEM partners.

Panther Lake, the next-generation of mobile CPUs from Intel, was the focus of Intel's closing statements at its CES-opening keynote address. Panther Lake is built on Intel's 18A process, a process node which is proving to become a sink-or-swim performer for Intel. The demo PCs are proof of Intel's claims that it has begun sampling Panther Lake to its OEM/ODM partners. As a successor to Lunar Lake, Panther Lake will be a notebook-first family set to begin mass-production in 2H 2025.

18A, Intel's name for its upcoming 1.8nm process, is effectively Intel's make-or-break product for 2025. Intel Foundry is working with outside customers interested in using the 18A process, hoping for a competitive edge over TSMC's 2nm and 3nm nodes. Panther Lake is set to be manufactured 70% in-house, which should result in higher profits for a struggling Intel.

Much less is known about Xe3 Celestial, Intel's successor to the Battlemage Xe2 family which is still in its own release cycle. Tom Peterson of Intel recently confirmed that Celestial is only waiting on software optimization (read: drivers) before being 100% for launch, and in fact that its successor, Xe4 "Druid", is now under construction. Celestial is planned to launch alongside Panther Lake, though with Battlemage still yet to fully release, it is a bit futile to guess at anything more specific for Xe3 at this point.

Panther Lake and Celestial are planned to hit the market in the first half of 2026, with these demo PCs seeming to be a good sign of forward momentum in this direction. For more news from Intel, its competitors in AMD and Nvidia, and the rest of the tech industry, be sure to keep following our CES 2025 coverage.

www.tomshardware.com

Intel shows off working Panther Lake systems at CES — Celestial Xe GPU cores power Intel sneak peek

Next-generation silicon is further along than we thought
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
 
Daniel Nenni said:
I would be willing to bet against that. But again, that is not a fair comparison. PTL has one 18A tile? Versus a complex TSMC N2 SoC to be sold in the millions? That comparison, if Intel makes it, is an example of the Intel drinking their own bathwater which is killing the company.

One thing I will give PTL, I believe it integrates multiple foundry die with BSPD, right? Impressive!
Click to expand...
Not really
Die4 - 114mm2 (Intel 18A)
Die 5 - GPU can be Intel 3 or N3E (54mm2)
Die 1 PCH on N6 (48mm2
There are 3 variants for Panther Lake
PTL H -> 18A tile + N3E GPU tile + N6 Tile
PTL-U/P -> 18aA CPU tile + Intel 3 GPU + N6 PCH

as for Apple SOC it has been around 100-125mm2 for few years 18A tile is in the same ballpark it contains almost everything except the GPU the only thing I am missing Modems/Rf but they are sourced from Broadcom iirc for Apple SOC
images.png
 
dkr1986 said:
Intel said LNL was meant/designed to be a niche product but due to its positive reception, they increased the volume to 3x now. With enterprise vPro models launched now. Shipments will accelerate further than 1.5 million.

But my guess is Intel will try to push ARL-U models to the enterprise segment more than LNL because, ARL-U (another low power CPU for thin and light laptops with decent battery life)is basically a MTL-U ported to Intel 3 and is much more beneficial for Intel's financials.


Intel had shipped >20 million units of AI PC (includes MTL) by the time Pat Gelsinger did the keynote at Lenovo event in October 2024 (the event where he handed over the ES0 sample of PTL to Lenovo CEO). They still expect to ship 100 million units of AI PCs (includes MTL, LNL, ARL, may include PTL too in small numbers) by end of 2025 (including 2024 shipments).
Click to expand...

Yes, I remember that Pat Gelsinger said in October 2024:

"Lunar Lake was initially designed to be a niche product that we wanted to achieve the highest performance and great battery life capability, and then AI PC occurred. With AI PC, it went from being a niche product to a pretty high-volume product," Gelsinger said.

My question is, how could Intel initially treat Lunar Lake as a "niche product"? It seems like an excuse to me. How can features like "highest performance" or "great battery life" be considered uncommon among notebook buyers' priorities? Did Intel and Pat Gelsinger also think that the popular Apple MacBook, powered by Apple’s M-series processors, falls into a "niche product group"?

If Intel only sold >1.5 million units of Lunar Lake processors in 2024, it's an indication that Intel might miss the important 2024's October-December shopping season and even 1Q2025 for such a refreshing and capable product line. I'm wondering the true reasons behind it.
 
Last edited:
hist78 said:
Yes, I remember that Pat Gelsinger said in October 2024:

"Lunar Lake was initially designed to be a niche product that we wanted to achieve the highest performance and great battery life capability, and then AI PC occurred. With AI PC, it went from being a niche product to a pretty high-volume product," Gelsinger said.

My question is, how could Intel initially treat Lunar Lake as a "niche product"? It seems like an excuse to me. How can features like "highest performance" or "great battery life" be considered uncommon among notebook buyers' priorities? Did Intel and Pat Gelsinger also think that the popular Apple MacBook, powered by Apple’s M-series processors, falls into a "niche product group"?

If Intel only sold >1.5 million units of Lunar Lake processors in 2024, it's an indication that Intel might miss the important 2024's October-December shopping season and even 1Q2025 for such a refreshing and capable product line. I'm wondering the true reasons behind it.
Click to expand...
The issue with Lunar Lake appears to be more about cost and product positioning rather than performance. Integrating DRAM enhances performance and efficiency but reduces the flexibility in laptop design. Unlike Apple, Intel doesn't have the luxury of forcing customers to choose from a limited range of options. Brand companies and OEMs are reluctant to push these products aggressively because the reduced component flexibility limits their profit margins.

Additionally, these extra costs are difficult to pass on to customers, as they are currently unwilling to pay a premium for "AI laptops."
 
hist78 said:
Yes, I remember that Pat Gelsinger said in October 2024:

"Lunar Lake was initially designed to be a niche product that we wanted to achieve the highest performance and great battery life capability, and then AI PC occurred. With AI PC, it went from being a niche product to a pretty high-volume product," Gelsinger said.

My question is, how could Intel initially treat Lunar Lake as a "niche product"? It seems like an excuse to me. How can features like "highest performance" or "great battery life" be considered uncommon among notebook buyers' priorities? Did Intel and Pat Gelsinger also think that the popular Apple MacBook, powered by Apple’s M-series processors, falls into a "niche product group"?

If Intel only sold >1.5 million units of Lunar Lake processors in 2024, it's an indication that Intel might miss the important 2024's October-December shopping season and even 1Q2025 for such a refreshing and capable product line. I'm wondering the true reasons behind it.
Click to expand...
Maybe it is due to Copilot requirements. The rise of popularity of LLMs happened after design decisions with Lunar Lake.
 
Last edited:
hist78 said:
Yes, I remember that Pat Gelsinger said in October 2024:

"Lunar Lake was initially designed to be a niche product that we wanted to achieve the highest performance and great battery life capability, and then AI PC occurred. With AI PC, it went from being a niche product to a pretty high-volume product," Gelsinger said.

My question is, how could Intel initially treat Lunar Lake as a "niche product"? It seems like an excuse to me. How can features like "highest performance" or "great battery life" be considered uncommon among notebook buyers' priorities? Did Intel and Pat Gelsinger also think that the popular Apple MacBook, powered by Apple’s M-series processors, falls into a "niche product group"?

If Intel only sold >1.5 million units of Lunar Lake processors in 2024, it's an indication that Intel might miss the important 2024's October-December shopping season and even 1Q2025 for such a refreshing and capable product line. I'm wondering the true reasons behind it.
Click to expand...
Weren't there reports that Intel was having issues supplying these Lunar Lake due to issue with their Foveros packaging early on? I could be mistaken, but that is what I seem to remember.
 
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