Intel is giving up on its 20A node, or at the very least, it won’t show up in any desktop processors. Intel announced that it would shifting resources away from developing 20A toward its smaller 18A node. Intel 20A was the foundation of Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs. The company says it’s now using “external partners” to create Arrow Lake chips, which will likely be chipmaker TSMC.
We first heard about the 20A node in 2021, where the then-new CEO Pat Gelsinger laid out a road map detailing how Intel would move off its storied 14nm node onto smaller manufacturing processes. You could read this shift to 18A as Intel jumping forward to more exciting future technology, but it doesn’t bode well given Intel’s long-standing road map. The release of 20A was supposed to start the “Angstrom era,” as Intel called it, where we would move beyond measuring transistor size in nanometers.
It’s hard not to read defeat given the recent troubles Intel has faced. Last month, Intel announced it would lay off 15% of its workforce prior to an earnings call. During that call, Intel reported historic revenue drops, leading investors to sue the company. In addition, Intel’s manufacturing business is in hot water, as Intel-produced wafers have failed tests from Broadcom, reports Reuters.
The larger shifts in the company have taken center stage, but Intel has had a challenging year up to this point overall. Its desktop CPUs experienced a wave of instability over recent months, hurting the trust the brand had built up among PC enthusiasts.
Still, it’s clear Intel remains focused primarily on its foundry business. It was one of the key drivers behind the 2022 Chips and Science Act, which could grant the company as much as $20 billion to build out domestic chip manufacturing. The company has yet to receive any money from the program, and internally, Intel is frustrated with what it sees as the government delaying payments, reports Bloomberg.
Despite these issues, Intel has landed some critical clients for its foundry business. In February, Microsoft signed on to produce its own chip on Intel’s 18A node, as did the U.S. Department of Defense.
Perhaps the big contracts on this node is why Intel decided to shift resources, especially as the company struggles to get its financials under control. “The journey to Intel 18A has been built on the groundwork laid by Intel 20A. It enabled us to explore and refine new techniques, materials and transistor architectures that are crucial for advancing Moore’s Law,” wrote Ben Sell, Intel’s vice president of technology development. “Focusing resources on Intel 18A also helps us optimize our engineering investments.”
Intel recently canceled its Innovation event, which was scheduled for September. We expected to learn more about Arrow Lake at the event. Despite troubles with 20A, Intel recently pulled back the curtain on its Lunar Lake CPUs, which are arriving in laptops later this month.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.