Intel 14nm Progress Update: Broadwell & Airmont On Schedule
by Ryan Smith on September 10, 2013 2:45 PM EST
Continuing our IDF 2013 keynote coverage, Intel is also using this morning’s keynote to announce progress updates on previously announced 14nm products. Intel’s plans here remain unchanged, with Intel seeing the exploitation of their fabrication advantages being one of the keys to better capturing the various mobile market segments, so Intel’s progress on their 14nm process and the resulting parts remains as something worth keeping an eye on.
First and foremost with Broadwell, Intel has confirmed that they are beginning 14nm production by the end of this year, with Broadwell being the lead product for the process. We expect to get some additional details on Broadwell later this week in other sessions, but Intel did make quick note of the fact that they’re seeing significant power savings with 14nm Broadwell over 22nm Haswell. Specifically Intel is already seeing a “30 percent power improvement” on battery longevity over Haswell with their early Broadwell silicon (being demoed at the show), with at least some expectation that they’ll see further improvements as they approach release quality silicon.
Meanwhile Intel has also reiterated that they will be following through on their earlier plans to accelerate Atom product releases to move from Intel’s n+1 node to their leading edge node, bringing Atom to parity with their desktop/mobile Core processors. To that end Airmont, Silvermont’s 14nm successor, is still slated for a 2014 release. The move from trailing nodes to leading nodes for Atom SoCs is perhaps the biggest sign of how Intel is treating the tablet/smartphone market this days, with the market being elevated from a secondary market to a primary market that receives (nearly) equal access to Intel’s latest fabrication technology, and by extension being a market that requires Intel’s most competitive products.
Source: The Verge
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Krysto - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link
Airmont at best will arrive for tablets (the "tablet chip" - i.e. the less optimized one). It won't really be available for smartphones until 2015, just like Merrifield won't be ready until next year. In 2015, ARM chip makers will be using 14nm/16nm (and FinFET), too. Intel is going to lose its advantage in process technology.Gondalf - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link
Ermmm :). Obviously you know the track record of Foundries, in my knowledge 28nm was a disaster in the first year of life. Global Foundries is in volume on 28nm only from a quarter or two.TSMC boss, more honestly, has said about a very "limited shipment" of 16nm devices in 2015, the bulk of will be on 20nm planar. ARM cpus will not be the firsts things built in 16nm/14nm, more likely high margins GPUs and FPGA. All foundries need to wait better yelds to give away their capacity for inexpensive Socs. My bet is ARM on 16/14nm in 2016.
Krysto - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link
Also the Broadwell power improvements are not surprising, considering Intel will not improve performance anymore. If anything, they'll go even more backwards in performance with Broadwell for "mobile" than they're doing with Haswell this year.This is really one of their three-pronged misleading marketing campaign to achieve this. The first trick is to lower performance as much as possible, and hope nobody will notice, while promoting the "turbo-boost" speed as the "real" speed of the device - another misleading trick they've been using for Atom for smartphones/tablets.
The 3rd trick will be using SDP numbers instead of TDP, and hope the idiots in the tech media will start forgetting to add the SDP name everytime they mention wattage, and using the number alone, like this" Intel's Broadwell XYZ is a 4 watt chip". Period. No mention of SDP. I've already seen it happen.
TheJian - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link
http://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/Intel-Not-Rel...http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Intel+Delays+14+nm...
Seems to conflict with all late June info. To me it's late if I can't get DESKTOP Broadwell chips in 2014. It seems some things are on time (or moved up? BGA or whatever) but new i-7's etc on broadwell will be late. All we'll be getting is the refresh. This is probably more a response to a lacking AMD than anything. Their cpus/servers are not in any trouble from AMD so that stuff is being pushed off. Even steamroller appears to be far behind even if you believe AMD's own numbers (10-20% won't catch a haswell even, let alone broadwell, heck wouldn't catch Ivy either probably in much).
So they can say broadwell in some form will ship in 2014, but not the form I'm after. Can't say I blame them really, as the competition is ARM now not AMD.
http://hothardware.com/News/Intel-Broadwell-Report...
Another one showing it's desktops delayed (which is the story pretty much everywhere). Google broadwell desktop delayed.
purerice - Thursday, September 12, 2013 - link
It is refreshing to see somebody on the internet back up an argument with links, but those you refer suggest a Haswell "refresh". Just as IB was a SB refresh or a "tick" to SB's "tock", so too could Haswell be the "tock" and Broadwell be the "tick" refresh.Otherwise, what would a refresh be? Assuming it is Broadwell, 30% less wattage at the same clock would translate into ??? 10-15% more clock ??? at the same wattage? Or would 6 core chips become mainstream?
everex11 - Monday, September 16, 2013 - link
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