Intel Exec Says Ivy Bridge Mobile Now Expected in June
Intel executive Sean Maloney confirmed that the mobile version of Intel's next-generation "Ivy Bridge" chips are now scheduled to ship in June, because of apparent problems with the manufacturing process.
Intel executive Sean Maloney confirmed that the mobile version of Intel's next-generation "Ivy Bridge" chips are now scheduled to ship in June, because of apparent problems with the manufacturing process.
In the interview with the Financial Times, Maloney was apparently asked when consumers could expect Ivy Bridge, the 22-nm chips that are .
"Maloney told the Financial Times that the start of sales of machines equipped with Ivy Bridge – the 22nm processor set to succeed Sandy Bridge in notebooks this year – had been pushed back from April. 'I think maybe it's June now,' he said."
Maloney's statements apparently confirm earlier reports that some of the Ivy Bridge parts were still scheduled for April, and that the remainder were scheduled to be released in June. A report at VR-Zone has also claimed that only the dual-core mobile chips would be delayed.
In September, Intel began promoting Ivy Bridge at its Intel Developer Forum conference. Intel said then that Ivy Bridge chips were slated to begin production before the end of the year and the first batch of them would appear in PCs and servers in the first half of 2012, reportedly as early as March. Intel told the FT that its guidance remains unchanged, and the Ivy Bridge processors will ship in the second quarter, as originally planned.
Ivy Bridge represents a process shrink of its existing architecture, what the company calls a "tick". But Intel has also said that Ivy Bridge includes new features, part of the "tock," or new architecture, that Intel schedules for every other generation. The new features in Ivy Bridge includes improved graphics with L3 cache, support for Microsoft's DirectX 11, plus support for three independent displays.
Intel's tick-tock driven by the conventional wisdom that changes in the architecture and the possibility of bugs should not be compounded by a new manufacturing process on top of that. But the FT reported that "Maloney said the adjustment was not caused by a lack of demand but came because of the new manufacturing process needed to make the smaller chips".
All told, Ivy Bridge chips will have a 20 percent increase in CPU performance over Sandy Bridge and up to a 60 percent boost in integrated graphics performace, according to Intel.
Additional reporting by Damon Poeter.