Intel’s upcoming Panther Lake notebooks reportedly delayed to 2026
A new report citing a renowned analyst claims that Intel’s Panther Lake mobile SoCs have been pushed back to 2026. The reason for this is said to be the lack luster performance of 18A, Intel’s semiconductor manufacturing process that uses RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia. Panther Lake is supposed to be Team Blue’s next generation of notebook and mobile processors, claiming to bring significant performance improvements over Meteor Lake processors.
Market analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, known for his industry analysis and information about the manufacturing supply chain of Apple, has shared details of his latest survey of Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS), Original Design Manufacturing (ODM), and various brands, stating that the mass production timeline for Intel’s Panther Lake (PTL) lineup has been postponed from early September 2025 to mid-Q4 2025. This means notebooks and devices powered by the Panther Lake chips may not be available to the public till 2026.
Intel’s original timeline for production communicated to its partners was the second half of 2025, so this reported delay still keeps the production within that timeline. However, not being able to release new products based on new hardware will negatively impact the company’s 2H25 revenue, profits, and supply chain trust, the analyst adds.
Intel is reportedly having to delay the production of PTL chips due to unsatisfactory performance yields from the company’s 18A manufacturing process. This process uses RibbonFET, a Gate-all-around (GAA) transistor that is said to improve density and performance, along with PowerVia, a backside-power delivery architecture that is said to improve cell utilization by 5 to 10% and ISO-power performance by up to 4%, according to Intel. With this manufacturing process, Intel aims to compete with TSMC’s 2N process. Unfortunately for Intel, the results don’t seem to be as promising as it hoped, or at least that is the case for now.
