Intel to launch next-gen Celeron, Pentium chips later this year

[Shawn Knight]

At its developer forum in China this week, Intel revealed plans to ship updated versions of its entry-level Celeron and Pentium processors later this year.

Codenamed Apollo Bay, the new chips are based on Intel’s 14-nanometer Goldmont CPU architecture that will succeed existing Celeron and Pentium processors based on the older Airmont architecture. Executives at IDF said Apollo Bay chips will offer better CPU and graphics performance in addition to improved efficiency, resulting in prolonged battery life on portable devices.

Intel’s cream of the crop, the Core series, is also expected to get an update in the second half of this year.

Originally, Intel planned to make the jump from today’s 14-nanometer Skylake architecture to its 10-nanometer Cannonlake chip sometime in 2016 following the familiar tick-tock development cycle it has relied on for the past decade.

In the wake of mounting evidence, Intel officially confirmed last month that it was ending the tick-tock era. That means the first 10-nanometer chips are being delayed until at least 2017 to make room for a third 14-nanometer product family.

The delay and introduction of a third 14-nanometer product family isn’t all that surprising as manufacturing on smaller processes has become increasingly difficult. When you consider the global slowdown in PC sales and the fact that AMD is no longer a serious threat, it makes perfect business sense for Intel to ride the wave as long as possible.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/64454-intel-launch-next-gen-celeron-pentium-chips-later.html

 

[VitalyT]

Intel to launch next-gen Celeron, Pentium chips later this year

I was reading it as 'later this century', either on the account of 'who cares?' or being drunk...

 

[umbala]

"When you consider the global slowdown in PC sales and the fact that AMD is no longer a serious threat, it makes perfect business sense for Intel to ride the wave as long as possible."

Translation: We're back to being a monopoly, so we're back to trickling tiny little upgrades for our processors every 6 months instead of investing any serious money into bigger/better improvements.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if 10nm chips were pushed even further back beyond 2017, possibly all the way into 2018. What incentive does Intel have to keep shrinking CPU dies when they have no real competition?

 

[HugsNotDrugs]

ARM is a very real threat to Intel in the consumer space. I sure hope Goldmont is a big step forward in performance.

 

[Evernessince]

"When you consider the global slowdown in PC sales and the fact that AMD is no longer a serious threat, it makes perfect business sense for Intel to ride the wave as long as possible."

Translation: We're back to being a monopoly, so we're back to trickling tiny little upgrades for our processors every 6 months instead of investing any serious money into bigger/better improvements.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if 10nm chips were pushed even further back beyond 2017, possibly all the way into 2018. What incentive does Intel have to keep shrinking CPU dies when they have no real competition?

It's not like Intel has no threats. ARM is advancing at a steamroller's pace. If ARMs performance keeps increasing like it does each year Intel pretty much has to kick it up a gear else ARM will eventually release a desktop chip.

 

[MHMPr]

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if 10nm chips were pushed even further back beyond 2017, possibly all the way into 2018. What incentive does Intel have to keep shrinking CPU dies when they have no real competition?

What? Who says Intel doesn't have competition? This is the first time ever that GlobalFoundries, Samsung and TSMC caught up to Intel, and they are all offering 14 nm chip (or similar, in TSMC's case). This is the first time in well over a decade that Intel has serious competition. Historically Intel has had an advantage mostly due to staying a step ahead in manufacturing processes (and only more recently due to AMD's screw-up with the Bulldozer arch), and they no longer have that advantage.
It's not that Intel doesn't have incentive to move beyond 14 nm. That have more incentive today than they ever had, they obviously wanted to stay a step ahead like they always did. The problem is that moving beyond 14 nm is being an issue for everybody.

It's not like Intel has no threats. ARM is advancing at a steamroller's pace. If ARMs performance keeps increasing like it does each year Intel pretty much has to kick it up a gear else ARM will eventually release a desktop chip.

ARM has never spawned a mainstream chip above 5W, and even among the ~5W ones there's still long ways to go to catch up with Core M. Core sizes (in terms of transistor count) are still much smaller than the traditional x86 architectures. While ARM might become a threat on the ultraportable market, them getting anywhere near the 65W~130W desktop processors is a long, long strech.
Also, there's no support for ARM on Windows and OS X. That means ARM processors are useless to about 98.5% of the PC market. And even if they both suddently decided to add ARM support (Windows kinda did in some versions), there's still a mountain of x86 software everyone relies on, so for most people, at least in the professional market, a move to ARM on desktops would still not be feasible.

 

[Evernessince]

What? Who says Intel doesn't have competition? This is the first time ever that GlobalFoundries, Samsung and TSMC caught up to Intel, and they are all offering 14 nm chip (or similar, in TSMC's case). This is the first time in well over a decade that Intel has serious competition. Historically Intel has had an advantage mostly due to staying a step ahead in manufacturing processes (and only more recently due to AMD's screw-up with the Bulldozer arch), and they no longer have that advantage.
It's not that Intel doesn't have incentive to move beyond 14 nm. That have more incentive today than they ever had, they obviously wanted to stay a step ahead like they always did. The problem is that moving beyond 14 nm is being an issue for everybody.


ARM has never spawned a mainstream chip above 5W, and even among the ~5W ones there's still long ways to go to catch up with Core M. Core sizes (in terms of transistor count) are still much smaller than the traditional x86 architectures. While ARM might become a threat on the ultraportable market, them getting anywhere near the 65W~130W desktop processors is a long, long strech.
Also, there's no support for ARM on Windows and OS X. That means ARM processors are useless to about 98.5% of the PC market. And even if they both suddently decided to add ARM support (Windows kinda did in some versions), there's still a mountain of x86 software everyone relies on, so for most people, at least in the professional market, a move to ARM on desktops would still not be feasible.

It's not that hard to scale up an architecture. Much harder to scale down as Intel is finding out. There's also a mountain of ARM software as well. Have you seen the modern person's daily life? They interact with ARM processors and ARM apps far more than they do x86. If android and ARM were both to release ARM based desktop products people would already have significant experience using those products and it would have the benefit of an existing app ecosystem. The only people who are going to cling to x86 apps are professionals who use highly developed tools. I'm not saying ARM is going to catch on but Microsoft sure as heck isn't doing anything to stop them either. Microsoft isn't loved by their customers and I'd bet that when given an alternative many would simply jump ship without thinking twice.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

"When you consider the global slowdown in PC sales and the fact that AMD is no longer a serious threat, it makes perfect business sense for Intel to ride the wave as long as possible."

Translation: We're back to being a monopoly, so we're back to trickling tiny little upgrades for our processors every 6 months instead of investing any serious money into bigger/better improvements.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if 10nm chips were pushed even further back beyond 2017, possibly all the way into 2018. What incentive does Intel have to keep shrinking CPU dies when they have no real competition?

It's not like Intel has no threats. ARM is advancing at a steamroller's pace. If ARMs performance keeps increasing like it does each year Intel pretty much has to kick it up a gear else ARM will eventually release a desktop chip.

Don't steamrollers move at a very slow pace?

 

[Evernessince]

Don't steamrollers move at a very slow pace?

They do but their pace is steady and unstoppable.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

They do but their pace is steady and unstoppable.

I was just pulling your leg there. I knew what you saying.

 

[captaincranky]

Do a half dozen low end chips really warrant wallowing this deeply in metaphor?