During its IDF 2014 presentation, general manager of the Intel PC client group, Kirk Skaugen, confirmed that the 14nm Broadwell is in full production and that it is expected in both mobile and desktop markets in early 2015. During the same note, Skaugen also confirmed that its next-gen desktop and mobile CPUs based on Skylake architecture will be entering production early next year and are expected by the end of next year.


The 14nm Broadwell chips have been recently introduced as Core M mobile processor designed for fanless tablets and 2-in-1 computers. To be known as Intel's 5th generation Core architecture, the Broadwaell will bring minor CPU improvements over Haswell as well as new integrated HD graphics and most likely much better power efficiency due to a new manufacturing process. While it will launch full mobile and desktop Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 Broadwell lineup in early 2015, this architecture will reportedly miss Pentium and Celeron lineups.




Intel is definitely doing something strange next year and having two microarchitectures for desktop and mobile markets might backfire. The reason behind this is that 14nm Broadwell chips were heavily dealyed and while Skylake, will be based on the same 14nm manufacturing process, it will have a new core and new graphics part, something that will put it well above the upcoming Broadwell architecture.




In any case, it is obvious that Intel had a lot of problems with 14nm manufacturing process and many will probably skip Broadwell and wait for the process to mature and launch as Skylake-based chips. On the other hand, Broadwell will be compatible with current LGA 1150 socket while Skylake will use a completely new LGA 1151 socket.

Source: Intel.com.