SemiAnalysis Teardown Reveals Intel 18A’s Backside Power and GAA Transistor Architecture
SemiAnalysis’s STEEL team has published a detailed teardown of Intel’s Panther Lake chip, marking the first commercial use of Intel’s 18A process node. The analysis confirms the implementation of backside power delivery (PowerVia) and gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, known as RibbonFETs. While the 18A logic density matches TSMC’s N3E, it does not yet surpass TSMC’s N2 or Samsung’s SF2 in peak density. The teardown highlights significant material and structural changes, including the use of molybdenum-lined tungsten contacts and a four-nanosheet transistor stack, which improves gate control but adds process complexity and thermal resistance.