Rumor: Intel Delays Ivy Bridge CPUs from April to June

For months, now, it has been known that Intel would formally launch the next-generation collection of central processing units in April this year, 2012, but this may not happen after all.

This is one rumor that probably has less truth in it than most others, and we hope for it to be so, otherwise lots of people will find that their waiting has been for naught.

According to Digitimes, the Santa Clara, California-based company has decided to delay mass availability of the chips.

While it will still ship a small number of them in April, the majority will only be given a green light at some point in June.

The motive behind this turn of events is the supply of Sandy Bridge CPU-based notebooks.

Apparently, inventories of these mobile PCs continue to be high, as the weak economy led to fewer sales.

As such, since it is obvious enough that no one will buy Sandy Bridge PCs when there are similarly priced Ivy Bridge machines out there, a delay in availability was warranted.

We are not sure what to make of this and, as we have already said, we hope this isn't more than the byproduct of a misunderstanding.

Nevertheless, the report says that first-tier notebook vendors have already begun to adjust their projects for Ivy Bridge models.

Consequently, the PC replacement trend isn't likely to start in earnest before September, when Microsoft launches the Windows 8 operating system.

On the bright side, since there always seems to be a bright side, makers of USB 3.0 controller chips, like Renesas, Etron and ASMedia, will get to sell their products for a few more months.

After that, they will have to look to other creative outlets, since the Panther Point chipset finally integrates native support for the SuperSpeed standard. We'll do our best to keep an eye out for updates on this, so stay tuned.