Intel CEO admits 'I've bet the whole company on 18A'

«I’ve bet the whole company on 18A.» So, says Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger in the most deadpan, matter-of-fact manner imaginable. He's not glib. He's not joking. Everything rides on Intel's 18A process according to Gelsinger.

Intel's CEO made the comment during a recent interview with TechTechPotato. And we can't help but notice that Gelsinger was even less equivocal this time than when he addressed precisely the same subject late last year.

As we noted at the time, he stopped just short of saying he was betting the company on 18A. «Betting the entire company? I don’t know that I’d go all that way,» he said in November. «But this is the biggest bet we have ever made as a company because it also puts incredible stress on the financials of the company,»

Whether Gelsinger has decided to elevate Intel's biggest ever bet into an entirely existential wager out of confidence that the plan is progressing or desperation as oblivion approaches, well, we're all going to have to wait and see. 

To recap the technical specifics, 18A is the production process that qualifies as number five in Intel's accelerated roadmap back to technological leadership. Intel 7 we already have in Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs, and Intel 4 just made it out of the door at the end of last year with the Meteor Lake chips. 20A supposedly arrives late this year with the Arrow Lake CPU family and then it's the 18A node's turn to roll out in 2025. Phew.

But why is 18A, rather than any of the other landmarks along the way so important? Partly the answer is to do with the advanced technology it promises. 18A will offer backside power, or what Intel calls PowerVia. In really, really simple terms, that means supplying power to a chip's transistors from below rather than above.

If you're wondering why that matters, Gelsinger explained it all last year and it all comes down to the problems caused by feeding power down through the multiple layers of wiring and interconnects that sit on top of the transistors in a