14 DAY TRIAL // Originally, Intel Broadwell central processing units, the successors to Haswell, were supposed to be ready for sampling before 2013 was out. Unfortunately, they have been delayed to late 2014.
This much we have known for months, but until today, it was not clear just how much the chips had been pushed back.
According to KitGuru website, not as much as some may have feared. When Intel said it was modifying the roadmap, it was assumed that Broadwell would debut in the fourth quarter of 2014.
And that would actually help avoid the awkwardness of Haswell and Broadwell coexisting due to the extension of Ivy Bridge availability.
Nonetheless, the newest report says that Broadwell will be out in the third quarter of this year, although the rollout will still be rather slow.
There are two reasons for this. One is the oft-lamented decline in consumer demand for personal computers, something Intel can't do much about.
The other is the low yield level for the chips. It would seem that Intel has not been able to manufacture as many chips as it hoped on the 14 nm process (there are more faulty chips per wafer than expected).
“We continue to make progress with the industry's first 14nm manufacturing process and our second generation 3D transistors. Broadwell, the first product on 14nm is up and running as we demonstrated at Intel Developer Forum, last month,” said Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel, back in October 2013.
“While we are comfortable with where we are at with yields, from a timing standpoint, we are about a quarter behind our projections. As a result, we are now planning to begin production in the first quarter of next year. It was simply a defect density issue.”
Keep in mind, though, that if Q3 is the ETA, then motherboards, notebooks, desktop PCs and other Broadwell products will show up, in trade shows or on pre-order, as soon as Computex 2014, in early June.