It appears Intel's upcoming 'Broadwell' processors are in for another delay. According to a recent report, the first wave of Broadwell processors won't land until the fourth quarter of 2014, thanks in part to the "slow digestion" of current-generation 'Haswell' CPU inventories.
This new, although unconfirmed delay follows on from the delay Intel announced in October of last year, when the company cited defect density issues as a reason chip production was pushed back from Q4 2013 to Q1 2014. At the time, Intel said the delay was just a "small blip in the schedule" that wouldn't affect the release of Broadwell's successor, 'Skylake'.
It's believed that Broadwell processors will only be available in limited quantities in the fourth quarter of 2014, and only mid-power U-series and low-power Y-series chips - both geared for mobile PCs and tablets - will be released at first. Other parts will follow in the early stages of 2015, according to the latest rumors.
Broadwell CPUs will be the first 14nm processors to come from Intel, following the company's tick-tock strategy that sees the Haswell microarchitecture shrunk down in an attempt to reduce power consumption and improve efficiency. Performance gains from Broadwell aren't expected to be massive, especially for desktop-class parts, which isn't surprising considering Intel is focusing their guns on ARM's low-power mobile chips, rather than traditional rival AMD.