Intel Confirms Nova Lake Will Use 18A-P Node, Shares CES Plans

Intel's next-generation Nova Lake desktop processors will be the first client product to use the company's enhanced 18A-P node, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said during Intel's Q3 2026 earnings call. Tan said Nova Lake is tracking ahead of schedule and that design wins are expected to be twice those of Panther Lake at launch, with more information to be shared at CES in January. Intel also said it plans to take Panther Lake capacity offline to build more Granite Rapids data center CPUs.

Nova Lake and 18A-P

Tan's prepared remarks described Nova Lake as "our first Intel 18A-P client product" and said the company looks forward to sharing more at CES in January. There has been speculation about which manufacturing node Nova Lake will use, with discussion shifting between Intel 18A and TSMC's N2P. Current speculation says the chip could use 18A-P for the SoC tile while using TSMC's N2P for the compute tile, though Intel has not confirmed that arrangement.

Intel announced in June that 18A-P had entered risk production. At Hot Chips in August, the company revealed that its next-generation Xeon 7 Diamond Rapids processors will be its first server products to use the enhanced node. Compared with 18A, 18A-P offers a 9% improvement in speed at iso-power, or an 18% reduction in power at iso-speed. Intel has described 18A-P as a drop-in replacement for 18A, allowing designs built for 18A to use 18A-P without extra engineering work.

PC Market Pressure and Capacity Shifts

Intel said 18A products now make up a third of client CPU revenue, up from less than 5% in Q1, and that demand for Wildcat Lake is outstripping supply. At the same time, Tan said OEM partners are aggressively managing inventory to match softer sell-through. CFO David Zinsner said Intel expects its client business to decline by "more than 20%" in the next quarter.

Zinsner warned of a further contraction in the PC market, saying Intel expects the 2026 PC unit total addressable market to decline about 12%, with second-half units down more than 20%. He said Intel does not expect a sustained recovery until memory availability improves and pricing normalizes, and that for 2027 Intel is planning for a PC unit TAM decline of roughly 10%. Intel said the pullback reflects reduced spending by direct customers, OEMs and IT departments rather than demand outstripping supply in the same way as a component shortage.

Despite the weaker near-term outlook, Zinsner said Intel sees a market-share-gain environment next year and in future years, and that the PC will go through a renaissance despite the memory shortage. He also said Intel is taking some client capacity offline to build more data center products. In response to a question about reallocating wafers, he said Intel is taking offline 18A wafers that were generally going to build Panther Lake products, with some of that capacity freed up to produce more data center wafers.

Sources: Tom's Hardware