Today, Intel officially announced its next generation processor chipset which has been codenamed Broadwell. The new chip is just 14 nanometer and is less than 9mm thick. When compared to processors which were around as recently as as 2010; the new Broadwell processors are 1/3rd as thick and just as powerful as the processors back then.
Rani Borkar, VP of Intel’s engineering group, made the announcement of the new chip and while the chip itself is currently codenamed Broadwell, the expectation is that this chip set will be featured in a slew of new laptops, tablets, and Ultrabooks which will all be part of the “Core M” family. Devices. The hopes are that this may be a game changer in the tech world. According to her, the new 14nm processors will help PC makers build much lighter and thinner devices to house the next generation Intel processors.
All chipmakers are constantly striving to shrink the size of the processor chip more an more in order to provide ever thinner, lighter, and more power efficient processors. The thing to remember about this chip is that it does not represent an advancement in chip design, but rather, an improvement in the manufacturing process. By making tech smaller, Intel has the option of either improving performance while maintaining power consumption or could improve power consumption while keep performance steady. The big potential gain here are systems that do not need require a physical fan or a cooling system to deal with heating issues. As of now, Intel is leading the race with its latest 14nm Core M chipset being announced.
Removing the need for a fan to keep the processor cool is what Intel is aiming at. Intel is trying to push its processor chips in tablets and laptops that are convertible (hybrid laptops). Intel rival in this category, ARM, has already manufactured processor chips that do not need any fan. Intel Core M processor was due last year but the company ran into a series of problems adapting the new fanless technology. Last October, Intel said that the announcement of the new M processor chips could be delayed up to Q1, 2014.
According to a senior person in Intel’s technology and manufacturing group, Intel has yet to reach the desired level of yield from its Core M processors and that it could take six to nine months in order to achieve that. Intel said that the first batch of devices carrying the latest Core M processors will be available around Christmas but the majority of the device s will be available in the first quarter of 2015.
