Intel’s 18A recovery accelerates with industry-standard 7% monthly yield gains, putting Panther Lake on track for mass production

Intel is getting closer to mass-producing its next-gen laptop platform, Panther Lake. According to an executive interviewed at the RBC Capital Markets Global TMT, the company is now reporting a monthly increase in yields at a rate that tracks the sector norm (about 7 percent). This is an improvement over erratic progress earlier in the year.

18A finally reaches predictable improvement

According to VP John Pitzer, the turning point came when Lip-Bu Tan took over as Intel's CEO in March. Pitzer expressed optimism that Intel is well-positioned to launch Panther Lake before the end of 2025. He promised that Intel will reveal more details about Panther Lake at CES in January.

Panther Lake: new cores, new iGPU, and major efficiency gains

We reported earlier that Panther Lake laptop CPUs will debut the new Cougar Cove P-cores and Darkmont E-cores. Both are based on 18A’s RibbonFET transistors and 2nd-gen backside power delivery (PowerVia). According to Intel, Panther Lake will offer 50 percent combined CPU and GPU performance gains compared to Lunar Lake.

Panther Lake is expected to have up to 16 CPU cores and 12 Xe3 Arc iGPU cores. Early leaks reveal models such as the Arc B390 (12 iGPU cores at 2.5 GHz) and B370 (10 cores at 2.4 GHz). Intel is reintroducing modular LPDDR5X memory up to 96 GB at 9600 MT/s for the top-of-the-line SKU.

14A node ahead of schedule

Pitzer also provided updates on the 14A. The successor to the 18A node is performing better at comparable stages despite making major changes, thanks to earlier customer feedback and a more mature PDK.