Intel announced its next-generation processor, Lunar Lake, today. But chief executive Pat Gelsinger also updated Intel’s roadmap — next up is Arrow Lake, Intel’s desktop chip.
Although Intel is talking extensively about Lunar Lake in what is probably an attempt to undercut Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite laptops shipping by its partners, Lunar Lake won’t ship until the third quarter, when Gelsinger promised more than 80 designs from its partners.
“This is the most consequential time of our careers together,” Gelsinger said at a keynote address at Computex, adding that it is the most profound time in the PC industry in 25 years.
Lunar Lake, however, is a mobile processor. For those looking for the next desktop, Arrow Lake will ship in the fourth quarter, Gelsinger said. Gelsinger didn’t release any details of Arrow Lake, however. Other Intel executives have said that Arrow Lake will be classified as a Core Ultra processor, however, because it will contain an integrated NPU.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Gelsinger also confirmed that Panther Lake, the next mobile processor from Intel, will ship in 2025. It will be fabricated on the 18A process. That’s significant, since Intel roadmaps originally characterized Lunar Lake as an 18A chip. However, both the compute tile and the controller tile — the two key tiles on the chip — are built at TSMC.
Intel characterized the previous Core Ultra, Meteor Lake, as an Intel 14A chip, It too used tiles built at TSMC, but Intel built its own compute tile on its own 14A process.
