They skip the node means no customer demand an no incoming money. If 18A is merely meh, they run out of money, and 14A never happens. Someone else buys the assets and Intel will not compete with Samsung or TSMC.
> They skip the node means no customer demand an no incoming money.
Not really, it also has to do with timing, fab space, extra cost of maintaining that node, etc.
I don't want to get into details as I work on 20A/18A development but I'll say that they share the same major process, 20A is just an earlier version. So it's not like Intel is dropping the process, it's just deciding to put it into production later.
20A was an internal only node, so the only potential "customer demand" was from Intel itself. If they are confident enough to release their 20A products on 18A instead, there is no real reason to keep 20A in development.
Not really, it also has to do with timing, fab space, extra cost of maintaining that node, etc. I don't want to get into details as I work on 20A/18A development but I'll say that they share the same major process, 20A is just an earlier version. So it's not like Intel is dropping the process, it's just deciding to put it into production later.
There's some more information here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/opinion/con...