Intel hopes its Core Ultra Series 3 chips are the start of a comeback
Intel CES is up for 2026 To herald the birth of Core Ultra Series 3, A new series of chips that deliver “extraordinary performance”. Mobile processors, formerly known as mobile processors, says Panther Lakeit offers great graphics and battery life, as well as the aforementioned grunt. And for the first time, silicon has been approved for embedded and industrial use cases, including robotics and smart cities. But like so many Intel-related stories these days, the launch is filled with so much subtext that you’ll need a copy of Cliffs Notes to understand it.
On the surface, these are some fast flagship chips available in the Core Ultra 7 and 9 series, as well as the Core X7 and X9, which come with 12 Xe graphics cores instead of the usual quad. Almost all of them offer a total of 16 cores and threads, and the entire second bar has a total NPU performance of 50 PTOPS.
Image of Core Ultra Series 3 (Intel)
These chips will be famous for two main reasons: First, Intel claims that these are the most advanced chips ever produced in the USA. Second, they are the first products made using Intel’s long-awaited 18A process, which has dogged the company for several years. 18A was a key part of former CEO Pat Gelsinger’s rescue plan to return Intel to the top of the chip world. However, unfortunately, this return was the result of the CEO (unfairly on my mind) was deposed at the end of 2024. Despite all the money spent, it didn’t help much. 18Arecently August 2025The company reportedly still suffers from low yields and high defect rates.
18A stands for 18 Angstroms; This is a much smaller measurement than the nanometers we currently use to denote transistor size in chips. 18 Angstroms is roughly equivalent to 1.8 nanometers, which puts it on the same rough level as N2, the most advanced production process currently available. TSMC in Taiwan. At CES, Intel’s new CEO Lip Bu-Tan said the company is now ahead of schedule in ramping up 18A production, which could signal a significant shift in the global chip market.
You should expect these chips to appear in laptops from all the usual suspects later this year, including HP, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung, and others.
