As revealed during a recent Q1 earnings call, Intel leadership mentioned that "external clients are getting their ASICs designs tested." The company's foundry business is working towards the finalization of its much discussed 18A node process, with alleged trial samples receiving an "impressive performance rating." According to Ctee Taiwan, Team Blue's foundry service has submitted test subjects to the likes of NVIDIA, Broadcom and Faraday Technology. The latter organization has (reportedly) disclosed that the 18A platform tape-out was completed last October—since then, received samples have been "successfully connected." Industry moles believe that NVIDIA and Broadcom are in the middle of conducting manufacturing tests. Additional whispers suggest the delivery of 18A prototypes chez IBM and several other unnamed partner companies. Insiders have indicated impressive/good "verification results." Contrary to reports from other sources, Ctee has picked up on insider chatter about Intel's next-gen Nova Lake compute tile design being "not entirely outsourced." Further conjecture points to Team Blue becoming increasingly confident in its own manufacturing techniques.