14 DAY TRIAL // Conference call with financial analysts can be a well of information, and Intel confirmed this well enough the other day, when it disclosed that its 14nm Broadwell central processing unit technology had issues.
Well, it was just one problem, called a “defect density issue,” which resulted in a lower number of usable chips than intended.
As people may or may not know, CPUs are produced in bulk, like every other semiconductor out there (NAND, DRAM, controller ICs, etc.).
What fabs churn out are large, round sheets of chips called wafers. Those wafers seldom have all chips in working order, but the defect rate is usually low, at least once the manufacturing process has matured.
In this case, however, the 14nm Broadwell processor yield is even lower than the minimum acceptable limit.
That is why Intel is doing its best to fix the problem, but doesn't expect to be able to ship Broadwell Core-series CPUs before the first quarter of 2014.
“We have confidence the problem is fixed because we have data it is fixed. This happens sometimes in development phases like this. That’s why we moved it a quarter,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.
Previously, Intel was supposed to have the Broadwell ready for sampling, at the very least, this quarter (October-December 2013).
Normally, when a problem like this pops up, Intel applies some fixes, but said fixes don't bring all the changes the company hoped for, leading to additional work. Said extra workload is what causes the delays. Thus, even though this is only a “small blip,” it will still have an effect.
Fortunately, for us consumers, this won't hurt much. 22nm Haswell is relatively young after all, so the slight delay in the jump to 14nm won't matter much in the long run. It's unclear when, in Q1, the CPUs will be completed.