The shortage of Intel processors, which has plagued the market for several months, seems to be poised to ease soon. Last year, Intel invested an additional $1.5 billion to expand its 14nm manufacturing capabilities, and it appears that these emergency measures will finally produce visible results. At least in June, the company plans to resume shipments of entry-level processors to second-tier laptop manufacturers. Until now, these clients have been almost completely cut off from purchasing such chips, but Intel is now starting to take orders from them again.
Intel's strategy during the shortage was to prioritize the supply of high-margin products and meet the demands of major clients like Dell, HP, and Lenovo. As a result, second-tier manufacturers were unable to procure budget Intel processors and had to either wait or shift their low-cost laptop models to AMD's platform. However, this situation is changing: starting in June, Intel's entry-level processors will also be available to clients that the company does not classify as priorities. The microprocessor giant has officially informed all its partners about this.
However, this does not mean that the shortage will end imminently. There is still no talk of fully satisfying customer demands, but the supply situation is definitely expected to improve. Intel CEO Robert Swan mentioned this directly during the quarterly report: "We have increased production to improve the situation in the second half of the year; however, some product assortment issues will still persist in the third quarter, although we will attempt to align available offerings with our clients' demands."
In addition to expanding 14nm manufacturing capacities in Oregon, Arizona, Ireland, and Israel, a certain alleviation of the shortage is expected due to Intel starting shipments of its 10nm Ice Lake processors, which are primarily aimed at the mobile segment. Their release began in the first quarter, and leading manufacturers are expected to showcase the first laptop models based on them by mid-year. In its quarterly report, Intel announced that the production volumes of 10nm processors exceed planned levels, meaning that some Intel customers will be able to transition to these more advanced chips without any issues, reducing purchases of processors produced using 14nm technology.
The news of the impending increase in supply of affordable 14nm processors has been welcomed with great enthusiasm by Intel's partners. For many laptop manufacturers, the first quarter saw a significant drop in sales due to chip shortages. Now, manufacturers hope to make up for lost time. Moreover, the recent announcements of new ninth-generation Core mobile processors and mobile graphics accelerators GeForce RTX 2060, GTX 1660 Ti, and GTX 1650 should stimulate consumer demand for mobile computers.
Source: 3dnews.ru
