Intel has quite literally bet the company on the rapid development of its production nodes as it looks to deliver five new nodes in a mere four years, and it is now poised to bring its 20A (2nm-class) and 18A (1.8nm-class) fabrication technologies to market ahead of competing processes from TSMC and Samsung Foundry. The company's chief executive, Pat Gelsinger, believes that Intel 18A's tech — which is set to be used for mass products in the second half of 2024 — is 'a little bit ahead' of TSMC's N2 (2nm-class), which is coming in the second half of 2025.

"I have a good transistor; I have great power delivery," Gelsinger said in an interview with Barrons . "I think I am a little bit ahead of N2, TSMC's next process technology in time."

Intel's 20A and 18A process technologies bring two major innovations: gate-all-around (GAA) RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery network (BSPDN) . 20A is projected to be a relatively short-lived node, allowing Intel to learn all the peculiarities of GAA and BSPDN, whereas 18A is meant to be the point where Intel expects to re-establish unquestioned leadership in the semiconductor industry. As a result, the company has pinned a lot of hope on this node.

Intel now says that 18A silicon goes to the fab in Q1 2024, which is in line with expectations that the first products based on the process technology will be available in the second half of 2024. In contrast, TSMC is set to start making chips on its N2 process technology sometime in the second half of 2025. Additionally, while TSMC's N2 features nanosheet GAA transistors, it still uses less-performant traditional power delivery.

TSMC still believes that its performance-enhanced N3P technology , due in 2024, will offer comparable power, performance, and transistor density characteristics to Intel 18A , and it claims that N2 will be better across the board than N3P and 18A.

But Gelsinger believes that 18A will offer considerable benefits compared to N2, particularly when it comes to performance — enabled by both enhanced RibbonFET and backside power.

"I think everybody is looking at the transistor of TSMC’s N2 versus our 18A," said Gelsinger. "It is not clear that one is dramatically better than the other. We will see who is best. But the backside power delivery, everybody says Intel, score. You are years ahead of the competition. That is powerful. That is meaningful. It gives better area efficiency for silicon, which means lower cost. It gives better power delivery, which means higher performance."

Gelsinger also implied that TSMC's N2 could end up being a very expensive production node, which will give Intel's 20A and 18A a chance to land foundry orders from customers seeking higher cost-efficiency without hurting corporate margins.