Intel Makes 14nm CPUs in 2014

Intel, as always, is looking farther ahead than the near future, preparing its roadmap well in advance, as proven, again, by reports about what the year 2014 will bring.

The 2011 edition of IDF (Intel Developer Forum) saw Intel talking about various things, like the Haswell chip (set for 2013).

The Santa Clara, California-based company also demonstrated the Knights Ferry compute controller (as covered here).

Now, a new piece of information has emerged, concerning the products that Intel will bring into play once Haswell and Ivy Bridge have grown old.

As some may or may not already know, the Ivy Bridge line of CPUs will succeed Sandy Bridge in 2012, while Haswell will arrive in 2013. Both series are constructed on the 22nm manufacturing process technology.

Now, Digitimes reports that Intel will leap from 22nm straight to 14nm at some point in 2014.

This revelation is attributed to Steven Smith, vice president and head of Intel's netbook and tablet PC business.

While 22nm Silvermont-based chips will appear in 2013, 14nm Airmon-based central processing units will come about three years from now.

All in all, Intel actually has an advantage here, because if this report is true and the company sticks to the plan successfully, it will score a point against TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).

TSMC does have its own 14nm process in the pipeline, but the production methods won't be finished until 2014, which means that mass production will be achieved in 2015 at the earliest.

Obviously, nothing is known about the performance and new features that 14nm products will bring along.

For those that are more focused on contemporary matters, AMD recently benchmarked its FX Bulldozer against Intel's chips.

As for things other than CPUs, Intel's Ramsdale PCI Express SSD (set to reach 2.2GB/s transfer speeds) might be worth looking into.