Daijiworld Media Network - Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Jan 6: Chipmaker Intel on Monday launched Panther Lake, its new artificial intelligence-powered processor for laptops, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) here, as the company looks to reassure investors about its next-generation manufacturing technology.
The Panther Lake chips are the first high-volume products made using Intel’s advanced 18A manufacturing process. Offering details of the new lineup, Jim Johnson, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC group, said the first series, called Intel Core Ultra Series 3, features a new transistor design and a new method of delivering power to the chip.
Speaking at the event, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company had fulfilled its promise to ship its first products built on the 18A process in 2025, referring to the Panther Lake chips.
Intel’s earlier Lunar Lake chips were largely manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). With Panther Lake, the stakes are high for Intel, which is aiming to reclaim market share lost to rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Johnson said Intel has developed a separate graphics chiplet, a small chip integrated with other chiplets to form a complete processor. Intel claimed that the Core Ultra Series 3 chips will deliver 60 per cent better performance than the previous Lunar Lake Series 2.
The company also plans to launch a handheld gaming platform based on the Panther Lake architecture later this year, as handheld PCs from multiple manufacturers continue to gain popularity.
Intel had earlier faced challenges related to chip yields for Panther Lake processors, but company executives have said yields are improving steadily, paving the way for the commercial rollout.
Meanwhile, rival AMD is set to deliver a keynote address at CES, where CEO Lisa Su is expected to unveil new AI- and graphics-focused PC chips. AMD has also announced a multibillion-dollar deal with OpenAI for its next-generation MI400 chips, expected to generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also addressed CES, stating that the company’s next-generation chips are in full production and could deliver up to five times more AI computing power compared to previous models.