Intel has officially weighed in on the controversy surrounding the launch of Ivy Bridge, noting that "reports of an eight-week delay to the Ivy Bridge launch are inaccurate." Spokesperson Jon Carvill further told CNET that their "schedule has only been impacted by a few weeks."
Much has been said over the past few weeks regarding the release of Intel's 22nm die shrink of Sandy Bridge. Back in October, a tip originating from motherboard manufacturers suggested that Intel planned to launch the CPUs in March 2012.
This seemed to be the commonly accepted launch window until a report from DigiTimes earlier this month suggested Intel was delaying volume shipments of the processor until June. A source at VR-Zone refuted those claims a week later, just before the company's executive vice president Sean Maloney went on record confirming the delay to The Financial Times.
Maloney cited the 22nm manufacturing process as the main reason behind the delay. The latest report from CNET claims the delay has to do with ULV (ultra low voltage) chips that will be used in Ultrabooks.
"There was real high demand for ULV and we weren't going to have the volume we needed for that with respect to the original launch timeline," said a person familiar with the situation surrounding the delay.
The delay essentially pushes back the launch window a full month for both desktop and notebook parts. Once Ivy Bridge has launched, Intel plans to increase production faster than they did with Sandy Bridge. The company expects to ship over 50 percent more volume of Ivy Bridge units to the market in the first two quarters compared to its predecessor.