Future Intel gaming laptop CPUs have "three times too many" defects, says report

Intel is reportedly struggling to put its next-generation Panther Lake mobile gaming CPUs into production. That's according to a new report, which suggests that the company's new 18A semiconductor manufacturing process is struggling to produce enough usable chips, putting the future of the whole project into question.

Intel Panther Lake is the company's future lineup for laptop gaming CPUs, with the chipmaker working on an alternate Nova Lake lineup for its next-gen desktop CPUs. If Intel wants to power the future models in our best gaming laptop buying guide, it's going to need to provide a suitable, workable CPU lineup that can compete with the best that AMD has to offer.

Reuters is reporting that, while Intel hopes to have a high volume of Panther Lake chips in production this year, only a "small percentage" have been good enough to provide to laptop manufacturers so far. This is the yield, the percentage of usable chips, which Intel needs to raise if it hopes to make any profit on its development.

According to Reuters' sources, the problem with its development stems from some of the big changes made by the new 18A production process. The new process includes a new transistor design, along with improved energy delivery, which has created "manufacturing risks" due to its complexity. Those sources claim that these Panther Lake chips have "about three times too many defects" for Intel to begin mass production at this stage.

This adds further pressure on Intel, which hasn't had a truly successful lineup launch in some time. Its most recent Intel Arrow Lake lineup for desktop gaming PCs failed to impress gamers on launch, as our Intel Core Ultra 265K review shows. Meanwhile, industry experts believe that the company's even more advanced Intel 14A process, set to follow 18A, has just 18 months to secure a big external customer, or the company will have to give up its in-house production entirely.

Intel hasn't commented on this latest news, but as recently as July 30, the company stated that Panther Lake production is "fully on track." We'll be hoping that that is the case, or AMD will find itself in an even better position to increase its market share over the gaming laptop market, leaving Intel-powered devices trailing in the dust.

If you're building a gaming rig right now, you're going to want to strongly consider an AMD CPU. Our best gaming CPU guide has a solid list of options for gamers, but you'll want to take a look at our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review to see why this AMD chip with 3D V-cache is our favorite for gamers right now.

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