Intel clearly hasn’t been having a good year; the launch of its 10th generation Comet Lake-S CPUs have been met with somewhat lukewarm reception, and more recently, its technical group hit a snag in the development of its 7nm process node. On an unrelated note, the company has reportedly engaged the services of TSMC to help in the development of its Ponte Vecchio Xe-based GPU.
According to China Times, the Taiwan-based foundry was reportedly approached by Intel and asked if it could work on getting the latter’s 6nm process node for its Xe-based GPU ready for production. To that end, the production of Intel’s uniquely sized die lithography is expected to begin later this year.
To be fair, Intel’s Ponte Vecchio Xe-based GPU is designed and aimed towards the datacentre market segment, and not the consumer market. On that note, and also because it’s not in high demand, Intel’s decision to outsource the production of the GPU’s process node to a third party makes sense.
In terms of capacity, Intel is expected to have 180000 wafers ready for Ponte Vecchio by 2021.
(Source: China Times via Hot Hardware)
