Intel Delays Broadwell PC Processors One Quarter

Intel successfully launched 4th Generation Core ‘Haswell’ 22nm processors back in June that have brought new life to the PC market. The successor to the Haswell line of processors will be Broadwell. Intel Broadwell processors are expected to be more power-efficient and faster (your mind is blown by that right?). The only problem is that processor has been delayed.

“We and our (manufacturing) partners have a strong desire to get Broadwell to market. If I could, there’d be nothing slowing me down. This is a small blip in the schedule, and we’ll continue on from here,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said.

This delay was expected by many industry experts as most new processor series are pushed back. Broadwell will be tough processor to bring to market in the since the FAB will be moving down to the smaller 14 nanometer processor. It turns out that this delay has been caused by a “defect density issue” that impacts the yields, or number of usable chips, Krzanich said. Intel says that they have a fix and will be trying out the fix to ensure it works on the next wafer run. What does this mean to you? Intel now hopes to begin production on Broadwell in the first quarter of 2014 rather than later this year.

According to slides that leaked in June 2013 the Haswell Refresh (Broadwell launch) was going to be taking place in Q2 1014. This might mean that Broadwell has been delayed until Q3 2014, but that is just speculation as this leaked slide might have taken the delay into consideration.