Intel's 14A chips draw interest from Apple, Nvidia, Amazon

Intel's long push to become a real alternative to TSMC just got a notable data point. Based on a research note from Piper Sandler, Amazon, Apple, AMD, Google, Tesla, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Qualcomm have been examining Intel’s 14A chip fabrication technology, but no one has committed to a deal yet.

Intel is required to get at least one anchor customer by the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027 to be able to achieve production by 2028.

The three main reasons for that, according to the firm, are the increasing success of Intel technologically, the complete capacity of TSMC until 2028, and the desire of chip producers to have non-Taiwanese alternatives.

Evaluating a process is a long way from committing a product line to it, but the breadth of the reported customer list suggests Intel has at least gotten a seat at the table.

Piper Sandler linked Intel's recent $20 billion share offering to this effort, estimating the funds could help equip a 14A fab capable of 20,000 wafer starts per month at a tooling cost of roughly $10 billion.

Intel's Fab 62 shell is reportedly nearly complete, but a finished building doesn't produce chips without the lithography, etching, and inspection tools still needed inside it.

CEO Lip-Bu Tan has said Intel won't expand leading-edge manufacturing without clear customer demand, warning in July that the company could halt 14A and later nodes if it fails to land a significant external customer.

"We face the prospect that it will not be economical to develop and manufacture Intel 14A and successor leading-edge nodes on a go-forward basis," Tan said, tying the process's future directly to signed contracts rather than expressed interest.

Process nodes such as 14A are merely marketing terms and not literal measurement standards, which makes comparisons difficult. Intel's 18 A process node is believed to be equivalent to TSMC’s 3-nanometre class process node rather than 14A, and by the year 2028, 14A could be up against TSMC’s N2 or A16 process nodes.