Following the launch of the Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” processors based on the Intel 4 node, the pace of IDM 2.0 has slowed down. Contrary to earlier claims, Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake are both TSMC 3nm (N3B) designs, including the compute tile. Multiple sources have confirmed that the 15th Gen Arrow Lake family (Core Ultra 2?) will comprise a CPU tile fabbed on TSMC’s 3nm (N3B) process, with only a few lower-end desktop (Arrow Lake-S) parts leveraging the Intel 20A (2nm) node.
Neither the Arrow Lake-P notebook nor the Arrow Lake-S flagship processors will feature the 20A node, instead relying on TSMC’s N3B process for their CPU tile supply. Lunar Lake won’t be any different. These mobile-only chips will also feature a compute tile fabbed on the TSMC “N3B” 3nm node and an iGPU tile fabbed on N4/N3.
The Arrow and Lunar Lake processors will feature the “Lion Cove” P-cores and “Skymont” E-cores. The latter’s iGPU will differentiate it from the former, courtesy of the Xe2 “Battlemage” architecture. Of course, there’s also a “3x faster NPU,” but let’s face it, NPUs are irrelevant for the time being. Arrow Lake is set to leverage the Xe-LPG architecture, the same as Meteor Lake, with some minor adjustments for mobile.
Intel’s first client lineup to use 18A will be Panther Lake, set to launch by the end of 2025 for notebooks only. Like Meteor Lake, it’ll be a limited-volume release focusing on the higher-end segments. Clearwater Forest will likely be the first 18A product in the server segment, launching around the same time.
Source: Igor’s Lab.
