Intel Introduces New Node Naming: 7 Nanometer Technologies Now Called “Intel 4” and “Intel 3,” Followed by “Intel 18A” (5 Nm) and “Intel 20A” (5+)

Tsing

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As part of today’s Intel Accelerated event for reassuring investors that Intel is poised to return to its former glory and reclaim its product leadership crown in 2025, Gelsinger revealed a brand-new road map that confirms Intel has completely changed its node naming. Instead of the traditional 7 nm and 7+ naming schemes, those products are now called “Intel 4” and “Intel 3,” respectively, while future 5 nm and 5+ products have been renamed to “Intel 20A” and “Intel 18A,” respectively. The “A” in those names refers to angstrom, a new era of semiconductors that will leverage two breakthrough process technologies also revealed by Gelsinger today: “RibbonFET, Intel’s first new transistor architecture in more than a decade, and PowerVia, an industry-first for backside power delivery.” Intel estimates that Intel 20A will ramp in 2024...
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ON a serious note though, the definition of what a "nm" is has been all over the map for a long time now, definitions of what a nm is measuring vary a lot between manufacturers. For example, TSMC's 7nm being really what Intel's 10nm is, and Samsung's 8nm being closer to what TSMC's 12nm or 10nm is, and what a half node is, etc.... it's really all over the place. It's more complex than that now with FinFET technologies and other things coming down the road like gate all around.

We do need a strong definition, we need a line in the sand, so to speak, on this measurement and get everyone to adhere to it, that's the hard part. I think when you look at it, density is probably the more important factor. Maybe that should be the benchmark.
 
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Density is probably as close as we're going to get. Won't be perfect, but we're not getting perfect since there's no way to compare the same IC 'blueprint' across nodes.
 
Those names came out of a thick layer of smoke.
 
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This isn't confusing at all.
 
It was only a matter of time before Intel joined the "Marketing naming" for process nodes trend. All of their competitors have been doing it for ages.
 
Bad marketing - tricking people into buying your crap

Good marketing - making people feel good about buying your crap
 
Zarathustra said:
And you expected a descriptive name based on their great history of descriptive CPU names in the core era? :p
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Intel hasn't known how to name **** since the Pentium IV. One could even argue that their inability goes all the way back to the Pentium's initial successor.
 
Dan_D said:
Intel hasn't known how to name **** since the Pentium IV. One could even argue that their inability goes all the way back to the Pentium's initial successor.
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I always assumed they intentionally obfuscated CPU names in the core era to make it difficult for consumers to know what they were getting, at least without googling detailed specs.

A good CPU product name would have something that could easily decode the following directly in the product name:
- CPU Generation
- Core count
- Clock speed (maybe even max turbo)
- Whether or not it has hyperthreading

In the beginning you sort of could, As I recall in Nehalem and Sandy Bridge Core i7 meant 4C-8T, Core i5 meant 4C-4T, Core i3 meant 2C/4T and Celeron was 2C/2T.

But then they went ahead and muddled that like crazy as time went on.
 
Zarathustra said:
I always assumed they intentionally obfuscated CPU names in the core era to make it difficult for consumers to know what they were getting, at least without googling detailed specs.

A good CPU product name would have something that could easily decode the following directly in the product name:
- CPU Generation
- Core count
- Clock speed (maybe even max turbo)
- Whether or not it has hyperthreading

In the beginning you sort of could, As I recall in Nehalem and Sandy Bridge Core i7 meant 4C-8T, Core i5 meant 4C-4T, Core i3 meant 2C/4T and Celeron was 2C/2T.

But then they went ahead and muddled that like crazy as time went on.
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Pentium was chosen as a name since the courts told Intel they couldn't copyright numbers. Pentium and Pentium Pro made sense. Pentium II onward didn't. Core 2, Core 2 Quad was OK, but Core i3/i5/i7 never did and as you rightfully pointed out, it's far more confusing now.
 
Zarathustra said:
In the beginning you sort of could, As I recall in Nehalem and Sandy Bridge Core i7 meant 4C-8T, Core i5 meant 4C-4T, Core i3 meant 2C/4T and Celeron was 2C/2T.
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This is all good and well, the issues come when you have to deviate from that, and for some reason don't want to use certain numbers.

AMD is also pretty bad at naming though, they are all over the place especially with their CPU's and APU's having same series nr but different gen's
 
Denpepe said:
This is all good and well, the issues come when you have to deviate from that, and for some reason don't want to use certain numbers.

AMD is also pretty bad at naming though, they are all over the place especially with their CPU's and APU's having same series nr but different gen's
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The solution is this:

Never ever under any circumstance give marketing what they want. Those nitwits will always muck things up. Set a predictable engineering and stick to it no matter what even if you don't like how it looks or sounds, no exception.

Agreed. AMD has sucked at this lately as well. And yes, that mismatch in generation and product numbers has really annoyed me. It seems misleading.
 
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