Intel Rumored to Beat AMD and Apple with 3-Nanometer “Lunar Lake” Processors in 2024

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Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has been confident about his company reclaiming the processor crown from competitors such as AMD within four years.



According to a rumored roadmap leaked by a user named mooreslawisnotdead (not to be confused with YouTube leaker Moore’s Law Is Dead, although some of his previous rumors are reportedly echoed here), Intel will finally accomplish this in 2024 with a new generation of processors code named Lunar Lake.



These CPUs will purportedly be manufactured on TSMC’s 3-nanometer process and feature a combination of Lion Cove and Skymont cores, which are said to provide a big performance jump that puts the chips ahead of AMD and Apple’s options in regard to both performance and power efficiency.



The alleged roadmap also claims that Lunar Lake will be succeeded by a particularly exciting generation of...
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I don't think Apple cares what Intel (or any other chip producer) does anymore really, so long as TSMC can give them the production and yield on 3nm that they have contracted from them. Apple already has their 3nm contract with TSMC, and will leverage it when they are ready for their next ARM processor. That doesn't compete directly with anything Intel does any longer (I don't really consider Macintosh competition with the PC, although a lot may - but the vast majority of these 3nm Apple CPUs will end up in phones and tablets anyway).

As far as beating AMD - yeah, sure. If you pay TSMC enough money they will let you beat anyone really. Intel can afford to pay to jump in line ahead of AMD. About the only people Intel couldn't pay to jump would be Apple - but again, Apple doesn't really care so long as it doesn't interfere with their production contract. Honestly I don't know if AMD is even ready for 3nm - they are still not up to 5nm (although to be fair, right now Apple is pretty much the only shop on 5nm with shipping products) -- not that you have to go in order on process nodes, but Zen4 was previously slated for 5nm next year.

And thirdly - it doesn't say anything about Volume. It's not like Intel hasn't put out extremely limited runs of products before just so they can say they have them... and that's what I likely expect this to be.

This is a clickbait story, mostly designed to help boost Intel's public image and stock. Paul is right, the lead is buried - this isn't Intel using their own fabs at 3nm - those still are digging themselves out of the mud. The graphic that is with the story is highly misleading. This is Intel outsourcing their production to TSMC, which is a big story in and of itself, and not good news for Intel. It's just being spun to sound positive.
 
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I thought Intel bought TSMC?

edit - nope that was talks with GloFo sorry
 
Brian_B said:
I don't think Apple cares what Intel (or any other chip producer) does anymore really, so long as TSMC can give them the production and yield on 3nm that they have contracted from them. Apple already has their 3nm contract with TSMC, and will leverage it when they are ready for their next ARM processor. That doesn't compete directly with anything Intel does any longer (I don't really consider Macintosh competition with the PC, although a lot may - but the vast majority of these 3nm Apple CPUs will end up in phones and tablets anyway).

As far as beating AMD - yeah, sure. If you pay TSMC enough money they will let you beat anyone really. Intel can afford to pay to jump in line ahead of AMD. About the only people Intel couldn't pay to jump would be Apple - but again, Apple doesn't really care so long as it doesn't interfere with their production contract. Honestly I don't know if AMD is even ready for 3nm - they are still not up to 5nm (although to be fair, right now Apple is pretty much the only shop on 5nm with shipping products) -- not that you have to go in order on process nodes, but Zen4 was previously slated for 5nm next year.

And thirdly - it doesn't say anything about Volume. It's not like Intel hasn't put out extremely limited runs of products before just so they can say they have them... and that's what I likely expect this to be.

This is a clickbait story, mostly designed to help boost Intel's public image and stock. Paul is right, the lead is buried - this isn't Intel using their own fabs at 3nm - those still are digging themselves out of the mud. The graphic that is with the story is highly misleading. This is Intel outsourcing their production to TSMC, which is a big story in and of itself, and not good news for Intel. It's just being spun to sound positive.
Click to expand...

While all you say is true, they do have to design a CPU for this process node that is worth making, which is in itself no small feat and I'm interested to see what comes of this.
 
Denpepe said:
Don't give them any ideas :p
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I was wondering about this - maybe not Intel, but could Apple even afford TSMC at this point?

TSMC has a net worth of around $615B. Usually a buyout bid will be at a premium - something above and beyond the current stock price, and take into account things like duplicate executive severances, etc.

I don't think Apple could even afford that, it would be more than 25% of Apple's entire net worth.
 
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