Roadmap Suggests Intel Isn't Launching 14nm Broadwell Until 2015

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Don't look for Broadwell chips any time soon

We've seen some leaked roadmaps as of late, including one that has Intel's Ivy Bridge-E slated to ship in the third quarter of this year, followed by refreshed Haswell parts in 2014. What about Intel's 14nm Broadwell architecture, you ask? Broadwell is nowhere to be found on any of the slides, perhaps indicating that it won't come out until 2015 at the earliest. Maybe Intel's having problems shrinking the die to 14nm, or there just isn't enough competition to warrant releasing Broadwell in the near future.
Yet another theory floating around is that the slides don't tell the whole story. As we pointed out in our Haswell review, Intel's 4th Generation Core architecture, while fast, is "a part that is obviously designed primarily to benefit laptops, tablets, and other small-computing needs rather than desktops." That's where Intel's focus is right now, because that's what the market dictates.
The main benefit of Broadwell, which is a "tick" in Intel's "Tick-Tock" upgrade cycle, is lower power consumption and higher performance per watt yet again. That's not very exciting on the desktop, so instead it appears Intel is more focused on tweaking Haswell next year. Delaying Broadwell to 2015 would also give Haswell-E a chance to shine without being overshadowed when it launches late next year.
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