10nm is not dead (it's okay)



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Charlie Demerjian, industry analyst and founder of SemiAccurate, published an article in which he claimed that Intel had abandoned its 10-nm process. The report comes after Intel repeatedly postponed the four-year process node. Demerjian has claimed for years that Intel's 10-nm process would face delays, a prophecy that is verified. And lately, he claimed that Intel had relaxed the design rules of its 10nm process, making it more similar to a 12nm node, in order to deal with delays and performance issues.

Demerjian now claims that Intel has "eliminated" its 10-nm process, to which the company quickly reacted via its @IntelNews twitter account:

The media reports published today that Intel is terminating work on the 10 nm process are false. We are progressing well on 10nm. Yields improve according to the schedule we shared in our last earnings report.

Intel's unusually fast response is revealing. The company certainly does not need to question the progress of its node at 10 nm, especially as it gets closer to its financial results later this week. As an official dispatch from an Intel Twitter account, the statement retains the full legality of any official Intel statement and misleading statements to investors constitute a punishable offense.

In other words, Intel subscribes to claims it made in its latest call for results, that systems with 10-nm processors would be marketed in the second half of 2019. It was argued that Intel could ignore its 10 nm process to the benefit of moving directly to its nascent node of 7nm. But nothing corroborates these rumors.

Demerjian was right in the past, rightly claiming that Intel's 10-nm process was facing delays as the company claimed the opposite, giving weight to its claims. The bulk of Demerjian's article is behind a paywall, so it's hard to analyze the reason for being Demerjian's statements. As no analyst is foolproof, only time will tell if Demerjian's claims are accurate or whether Intel is actually moving toward large-scale 10nm availability.

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