Intel’s CPU roadmap from 2022 claimed the delivery of 5 advanced nodes in just four years between 2021 and 2025 (that’s 5 years, technically). Fast forward to the present day, and the chipmaker is nearly halfway through that roadmap, with future products looking on track for timely execution. On the first day of its Innovation Event, CEO Pat Gelsinger unveiled the 14th Gen Meteor Lake mobility processors, featuring a disaggregated design, EUV lithography, and three separate core clusters spread across two dies.
In addition to detailing Meteor Lake and a sneak peek at a 16th Gen Lunar Lake PC, Intel also reasserted its CPU roadmap. First up, we have the 14th Gen Meteor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh launching at the end of this year (December for Meteor and October for Raptor).
Meteor Lake will be followed by the 15th Gen Arrow Lake family, a desktop-centric lineup with core counts of up to 40 (rumored). Leveraging the Lion Cove “P” core to boost gaming and single-threaded performance, these chips are already being tested internally at Intel labs. Volume production of these 20A (2nm) chips is slated to commence early next year, followed by a late 2024 launch.
The 20A process technology will feature PowerVia backside power delivery and RibbonFET (GAA) transistors for improved power efficiency and performance.
The 15th Gen Arrow Lake family will be succeeded by 16th Gen Lunar Lake sometime in 2025. Like Meteor Lake, this will be a mobile-first architecture with an emphasis on power efficiency and die area. Originally said to use the 18A (1.8nm) node, it may have been downgraded to 20A (2nm) to prevent a roadmap delay.
And lastly, there’s 17th Gen Panther Lake, which will bring a slew of improvements to the high-performance PC market. We’re looking at a chip leveraging the next-to-next-gen Cougar Cove “P” and Skymont “E” cores built atop the 18A (1.8nm) process node. They’ll also leverage the rumored “Rentable Units“, succeeding hyper-threading after decades of widespread use. A 2026 release is what I’d call plausible.
