Intel Launches Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs Built on Its Long-Awaited 18A Process

Intel is set to formally debut its first Core Ultra Series 3 laptop processors later this month, the company announced during its CES keynote. Codenamed Panther Lake, the new chips are initially aimed at high-end ultraportable laptops and mark a major milestone for Intel as the first processors manufactured using its long-awaited 18A process. The technology is central to Intel’s efforts to close the manufacturing gap with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

Intel announces that 14 processors from five product families will be part of the launch and will be incorporated into over 200 different PC products. The initial system models will be available for purchase starting January 27, and other models will be made available until the end of Q2 2023.

A closer look at Panther Lake
Intel previously outlined the core architecture of Panther Lake late last year. In several respects, the design represents a step back from Lunar Lake, sold as the Core Ultra 200V series. Lunar Lake relied heavily on externally manufactured chiplets and used on-package memory rather than DIMM slots or soldered RAM. Those decisions were driven by a focus on power efficiency and battery life, alongside other changes such as the removal of Hyper-Threading from performance cores.

With Core Ultra Series 3, Intel has reversed some of these choices, though the company says Lunar Lake still served as the baseline for power efficiency. The aim, Intel notes, is to deliver meaningful performance gains without sacrificing battery life.

Like previous Core Ultra generations, Panther Lake uses a chiplet-based design, combining multiple silicon tiles on a base tile via Intel’s Foveros advanced packaging technology. The compute tile home to the CPU cores and the neural processing unit (NPU) is built on the 18A process. Two versions of this tile will be offered: one with up to 16 CPU cores and another with eight.

Other components continue to rely on external and legacy processes. The platform controller tile, responsible for most I/O, is manufactured by TSMC, as is the high-end graphics tile with 12 GPU cores. The smaller (4-core) graphics tile will be manufactured using Intel's older technology (Intel 3) which has previously only been used for Xeon Server chips With this approach, the various components of the Panther Lakes can be mixed and matched between three different configurations; (1) 16-Centre and 12-Centre CPUs with a larger number of GPU cores, (2) both 16-centre CPUs and 4-Center GPUs, (3) and 8-centre CPUs and 4-GPU cores will then provide the user with the ultimate flexibility. Additional variants with some CPU or GPU cores disabled complete the broader Core Ultra Series 3 lineup.

Performance, efficiency, and AI capabilities
Intel is making bold performance claims for its top-tier Core Ultra Series 3 chips, citing up to a 60% improvement in multi-core CPU performance compared to the outgoing Core Ultra 200V processors. Integrated GPU performance is said to be up to 77% faster. Regarding efficiency, Intel showcased a Lenovo IdeaPad reference design which was made with a Core Ultra X9 388H and was claimed to have achieved 27.1 hours of streaming on Netflix in 1080p resolution, although the actual time that battery lasts would depend on different configurations, usage patterns, etc.

All Panther Lake processor models utilise the same NPU (Neural Processor Unit) architecture and can achieve up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS). Compared with Microsoft's requirement of 40 TOPS for devices using Copilot+, Panther Lake processors are well within that threshold and do exceed the AMD Ryzen AI 400 series that claim to provide 60 TOPS, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 chips claim of 80 TOPS respectively. The models also support Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity features, and up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports.

A pivotal moment for Intel?
Whether Core Ultra Series 3 represents a genuine turning point for Intel or a temporary rebound remains to be seen. Panther Lake’s launch is slightly behind Intel’s original timeline arriving about a month later than projected in October but by the company’s recent standards, the delay is modest.

One of the important things about the launch of its 18A products is that the plant is fully functional and up and running. Now that this is happening, it presents an opportunity to pursue a broader strategy with regard to our third-party chip manufacturing initiatives that were proposed by our former CEO, Pat Gelsinger, nearly five years ago.