I attended a company Intel To CES 2026 to announce the birth of a series Core Ultra Series 3a new set of chips that promises to deliver “exceptional performance.” The company says the mobile processors, formerly known as Symbol Panther LakeIt provides great graphics, long battery life, and tremendous power.
For the first time, this silicon has been approved for embedded and industrial use cases, including robotics and smart cities. But, like many recent Intel stories, this launch carries a lot of complex connotations and context.
Technical specifications: On the surface, these chips appear pioneering and powerful, and they come in categories:
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Categories: Available in ranges Core Ultra 7 and 9In addition Core X7 and X9.
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Graphics: Comes with 12 Xe graphics cores (instead of the usual four).
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Processing: Almost all of them provide total 16 cores And processing threads.
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artificial intelligence: All (except two) have an overall NPU performance of 50 PTOPS.
Why are these chips important? (18A operation) These chips will gain popularity for two main reasons:
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Intel claims that The most advanced chips manufactured in the United States At all.
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It is the first to be manufactured using a manufacturing process “18A” Long awaited from Intel.
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What is 18A? It is short for 18 Angstrom, which is a scale much smaller than a nanometer. Equivalent to approximately 18 angstroms 1.8 nmwhich puts Intel at the same technical level as the most advanced manufacturing process (N2) available to its competitor TSMC In Taiwan.
Company context and leadership: Operation 18A was a key plank in former CEO Pat Gelsinger’s rescue plan to put Intel back on top. Unfortunately, this return did not come quickly enough to prevent his ouster at the end of 2024. The situation was further complicated by reports in August 2025 that the company was still suffering from low production yields and high defect rates.
However, Intel’s new CEO, Lip Bo Tan, said at CES that the company Ahead of schedule Currently, 18A production is being ramped up, which could represent an important turning point in the global chip market.
Availability: Expect to see these chips in laptops from the usual major companies such as HP, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung And others during this year.
CES 2026 coverage: The show takes place in Las Vegas from January 4 to 9. As usual, the Engadget team is on site to cover all the news and products, including the latest Samsung, LG, and NVIDIA releases. There are still press conferences scheduled for Monday for my company Sony Afeela andAMD.
