Intel released some pretty grim financial numbers (open in new tab), with revenue for the most recent quarter down 32% year over year to a loss of nearly $700 million. Chipzilla, however, remains bullish on Intel's roadmap and the imminent arrival of its new chiplet-based Meteor Lake chip.

Without getting into the nitty-gritty numbers, Intel's sales fell for both PC and server chips, and while a loss of nearly $700 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 sounds bad, it does not spell Intel's doom. After all, Intel made a profit of nearly $5 billion in the same quarter in 2021, and one quarter of losses will not bankrupt the company.

However, this reflects Intel's struggle to bring Intel 7 technology (the node formerly known as 10nm) up to speed.

However, with the broader global recession, some grim numbers from Intel are hardly a surprise. Intel is not the only company in the high-tech industry that has seen its performance deteriorate in recent quarters.

Moreover, Intel is predicting that Q1 2023 will be another bad quarter. What undoubtedly matters, however, is how Intel executes its roadmap going forward and whether it can continue to deliver products when it promises to. The most immediate example is the 14th generation Meteor Lake CPUs.

On that note, there is at least some good news. Along with the financial numbers, Intel also released roadmap guidance (opens in new tab). Intel claims that the new Intel 4 (or 7nm) node is "manufacturing ready" and that plans to begin production of new Meteor Lake chips based on the Intel 4 later this year remain on schedule.

Meteor Lake will be Intel's first "chiplet" design (open in new tab), with the CPU core, graphics, and I/O all on separate dies. In fact, the graphics die will be manufactured for Intel by Taiwanese foundry TSMC, which currently also manufactures Arc GPUs.

It is still unclear exactly what the ramp-up in production later this year will mean in order to actually make Meteor Lake CPUs available for purchase; in the summer of 2021, Intel has already talked about having Meteor Lake CPUs taped out, and later this year talked about plans to manufacture with Intel 3 instead of Intel 4. However, Intel 3 is an improved version of Intel 4, not a completely new node.

In any case, we'll believe Meteor Lake CPUs when we see them. Intel may produce Meteor Lake CPUs this year. However, there is no guarantee that they will be available for purchase in 2023.

Speaking of chip tape-outs, Intel also taped out test chips for the 20A and 18A nodes and said that both nodes are coming along nicely. Given that these are "test" chips rather than actual CPU designs, this means that the 20A and 18A nodes are further along than what Intel 4 announced in summer 2021.

Nevertheless, Intel also claims to have taped out test chips for the 20A and 18A nodes for "major potential foundry customers." In other words, as far as Intel is concerned, both its own roadmap and its plans to start producing chips for other companies (possibly competitors like AMD and Nvidia) are go, go, go.

However, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from any of this. Intel is certainly struggling at the moment. But so is much of the high-tech industry. As in the past, Intel's fate depends on its ability to deliver on its promise of Meteor Lake later this year and a timely follow-up with 20A and 18A production technology.

If Intel accomplishes all of that, the future is bright. But after nearly a decade of failing to meet its goals, Intel has something to prove.