Intel pushes back Ivy Bridge processors until June

Intel has delayed the arrival of its next-generation processor, Ivy Bridge.

The successor to the current Sandy Bridge was expected to arrive at the beginning of April, although an Intel representative told IT Pro's sister title PC Pro that shipments weren't expected until the end of that month.

We are making some production adjustments to meet increasing customer demand for processors for Ultrabook devices.

Now, it looks like the new processors have been further delayed. Vice president and chairman of Intel China, Sean Maloney, told The Financial Times: "I think maybe it's June now."

He stressed that the change was not because of lack of demand, but down to manufacturing issues.

Intel has been pushing the new processors for Ultrabooks, the light laptops the chip maker has developed alongside PC manufacturers.

On track

Intel told PC Pro the launch was "on track" despite the scheduling changes.

"We remain on track to launch our third Generation Intel Core and Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2 (Ivy Bridge) processor families in spring 2012, and we are ramping three factories simultaneously," an Intel spokesperson said in a statement. "However, we are making some production adjustments to meet increasing customer demand for processors for Ultrabook devices."

"To ensure customers have adequate supply to support a broad market launch for third Generation Intel Core, we are adjusting the launch schedules accordingly," the statement added. "We expect to supply the market with 50 per cent more third Generation Intel Core than second Generation Intel Core in the first two quarters of the two products' respective ramps."

Ivy Bridge uses the same architecture as its predecessor, but is produced on a smaller scale, at 22nm rather than Sandy Bridge's 32nm fabrication process.