The market has been suffering from shortages of 14nm Intel processors since mid-last year. The company has made enormous efforts to correct the situation, investing an additional $1 billion to expand production using a significantly outdated technological process. However, even if this helped, it was not enough. As reported by Digitimes, Asian Intel clients are once again complaining about the inability to purchase 14nm Intel processors in sufficient quantities, which ultimately forces them to postpone announcements of some of their new products from the end of this year to the beginning of next year.
It’s worth noting that the onset of the shortage last year looked somewhat similar: the first to complain about supply shortages were the second-tier laptop manufacturers, and they started doing so long before Intel itself acknowledged its inability to meet demand. One would think that the situation should have changed since then, as Intel finally managed to launch its 10nm technology, which is now being used to produce the new generation of mobile processors, Ice Lake. However, it seems that Ice Lake shipments are still not that significant, and the majority of Intel's partners continue to prefer 14nm chips. Additionally, alongside the 10nm Ice Lake, the microprocessor giant announced 14nm Comet Lake processors, which means that the demand for Intel's 14nm products in the mobile segment has not decreased at all.
For the sake of fairness, it should be emphasized that the original Digitimes material talks about the resurgence of shortages specifically in the context of Intel's mobile processors. Indeed, at the recent IFA 2019 exhibition, many laptop manufacturers presented their new portable computer models based on the fresh 14nm Intel chips, promising to begin shipments by the end of the year. This could have led to a significant rise in demand for 14nm processors, which Intel was not adequately prepared for. What the actual situation is, we will surely find out very soon when we see how actively mobile computers based on Comet Lake appear on store shelves.
As for 14nm processors for the desktop and server segments, supply disruptions are unlikely even during the pre-holiday high sales season. Intel has long indicated that it is primarily focused on fulfilling orders for 'big cores' and more expensive processors from the Core and Xeon families. Therefore, the most affected will likely be the solutions based on Atom used in Chromebooks and budget platforms, for which supply shortages have become routine over the past year.
The anticipated announcements of 14nm processors for the desktop segment, including the release of the 5GHz Core i9-9900KS and the updated HEDT chip family Cascade Lake-X, are unlikely to create significant production issues for Intel. These processors target the high-end price segments, and it is improbable that demand for them will be so substantial that satisfying it would require any special efforts from Intel.
Source: 3dnews.ru
