Demand for Intel’s processors is apparently there, but the supply is not

Yields are currently improving 7 to 8 percent each month, according to Intel. But that could rely on fairly low initial yields: reports last summer suggested that only 10% of chips coming off 18A production lines met Intel’s requirements at the time. Intel expects its supply to have increased enough over the next few months to help ease shortages.

“I believe the first quarter is the trough,” Zinsner said. “We will improve the offer in the second quarter.”

Intel sells everything it can make

When Intel can start making enough chips to meet its demand, that should help improve the company’s bottom line.

“We delivered [our Q4 2025] results despite supply constraints, which have significantly limited our ability to leverage the full strengths of our underwriting markets,” Tan said. “We are working aggressively to resolve this issue and better meet the needs of our customers in the future.”

Intel has been signaling for some time now that it was selling virtually every chip it could get its hands on. Intel’s vice president of investor relations, John Pitzer, said last month that Intel would sell more of its Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake Core Ultra Series 2 chips to consumers, as well as its Granite Rapids chips for data centers, if it could get more of them.

As Intel looks to improve its position in the near term, the company also says it continues to make progress on its future manufacturing nodes, including different versions of the 18A process and the upcoming 14A process. Intel is working to engage “potential external customers” who would use the 14A process to make their own chips. If these third parties decide to use Intel’s manufacturing facilities, Intel hopes to know “beginning in the second half of this year and continuing through the first half of 2027,” and then plans to expand its manufacturing capacity based on the number of external customers it finds.

On the chip design side, Intel also expects its first next-generation Nova Lake chips to be ready “by late 2026.” We don’t know much about Nova Lake yet, but it should be Intel’s next architecture that is expected to cover both desktop and laptop processors, while the Panther Lake chips are primarily aimed at laptops. At least part of the chip will also be manufactured using method 18A.