It’ll still use the same broad FinFET transistor architecture that Intel’s been using since 2011. Originally planned for 2021, it’s the next major jump in technology for Intel, using EUV (extreme ultraviolet) technology - something already utilized by Samsung and TSMC’s 5nm node products, for comparison.

Intel 4 is the architecture formally known as Intel’s 7nm process, which Intel infamously was forced to delay out to 2023 last summer following manufacturing issues.The first Intel 7-based products will show up as early as this year, with the already previewed Alder Lake chips coming at the end of 2021 for consumer products, and the upcoming Sapphire Rapids chips in 2022 for data centers. Intel says that the new Intel 7 hardware will offer approximately 10 percent to 15 percent improvements in performance-per-watt compared to the previous generation - or, as is always the case, improved power efficiency and battery life should hardware manufacturers prefer to keep performance the same. Intel 7 is the new name for what would have been Intel’s third-generation 10nm technology and the successor to Intel’s 10nm SuperFin (aka Intel’s second-generation 10nm chips, found most notably in its 11th Gen Tiger Lake chips).

Here’s a look at Intel’s new roadmap and what it all actually means. Intel’s updated roadmap and node naming Image: Intel That’s something that translates to commercial hardware, too: we’ve already seen that Intel’s current 10nm chips are still competitive with AMD’s cutting-edge 7nm Ryzen chips, for example.Īll that is to say that Intel’s rebranding here isn’t entirely unfair to see, even if it does make it harder to parse when those bigger “node” change advances are happening with the new nomenclature. In modern semiconductors, node names don’t actually refer to the size of a transistor on a chip: thanks to advances like 3D packaging technologies and the physical realities of semiconductor design, that hasn’t been the case since 1997 ( as noted by ExtremeTech).Īnd from a technical perspective, Intel’s 10nm chips are broadly on par with “7nm” branded hardware from competitors like TSMC or Samsung, using similar production technologies and offering comparable transistor density. And while that’s technically true, it’s not as unfair of a comparison as it necessarily looks. How that works in practice is that those new third-generation 10nm chips will be referred to as “Intel 7,” instead of getting some 10nm-based name (like last year’s 10nm SuperFin chips).Īt first glance, it sounds a lot like a cheap marketing tactic designed to make Intel’s upcoming 10nm chips look more competitive next to products from AMD, which are already on TSMC’s 7nm node, or Apple’s 5nm M1 chips.

Intel processor numbers explained