At Barclays 22nd Annual Global Technology Conference, Intel was a special guest where interim co-CEOs Michelle Johnston Holthaus and David Zinsner provided an update on Intel's current status. One highlight of the discussion was Intel's upcoming processor codenamed "Panther Lake," which is set to succeed the Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake-H" mobile processors. The company revealed that Panther Lake will be based on an Intel 18A node, and a few selected customers have already tested Panther Lake on the E0 engineering sample chip.
Interim co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus mentioned, "Now we are using Intel Foundry for Panther Lake, which is our 2025 product, set to launch on 18A. This marks the first time we are customer zero on an Intel process in a long time." She also added, "We have distributed ES0 samples of Panther Lake to eight customers, indicating the silicon and Foundry are in good health."
While the exact meaning of ES0 within Intel is unknown, it is likely one of the initial engineering samples on the 18A node. "ES" typically stands for engineering samples, with zero possibly denoting the first design iteration. Panther Lake-H is expected to feature up to 18 cores, including 6 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LP cores. The design reintroduces low-power island E-cores in the SoC tile, with P-cores utilizing "Cougar Cove" for higher IPC compared to "Lion Cove," alongside existing "Skymont" E-cores. The SoC tile may transition from Arrow Lake's 6 nm to a newer process to accommodate the LP cores and an updated NPU. The iGPU is rumored to utilize the Xe3 "Celestial" architecture. While Arrow Lake-H is set to launch in early 2025, Panther Lake-H is expected to debut in 2026.
