Intel's 18A-P enters risk production and promises 9% CPU boost

Screenshots of an Intel presentation shared by Hardwareluxx show the company's 18A-P process has entered risk production. Intel describes 18A-P as backwards compatible with Intel 18A, meaning fabs, machinery and chip designs do not need to change. The slides list several improvements: 18% lower power at iso-performance; 9% fully routed block-level performance at iso-power; 20–40% improved thermal resistance; and 10–30% improved Via resistance at performance-critical layers.

In practical terms, chips built on 18A-P should deliver about 9% higher CPU performance for the same power or about 18% lower power for the same performance, along with reduced performance impact from backside power delivery. Intel already uses 18A for Panther Lake laptop chips, so 18A-P could appear in future refreshes or in more power-hungry designs such as upcoming Nova Lake desktop chips.

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