Intel Broadwell CPUs to Make Appearance in 2014

In 2014, Intel is expected to launch the successor of the yet unveiled Haswell CPU architecture, which will go by the name of Broadwell and will reportedly become the chip maker’s first true system-on-a-chip (SoC) design.

The Broadwell CPU comes as a "tick" on Intel’s roadmap, meaning that this is actually a 14nm die shrink of the Haswell architecture which is expected to arrive sometime in 2013.

Compared to its predecessor, Broadwell will however feature a more integrated design and according to the Bright Side of News website will become Intel’s first true SoC design as it includes features such as Ethernet, Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 right on the chip’s die.

Right now, there is little else known about Broadwell, but since it will come as a die shrink of Haswell, many of the architecture changes and features introduced by Intel in the latter will make their transition towards this 2014 CPU.

Some of the most important changes will target the processor’s IPC performance, but Intel is also expected to introduce support for the AVX2 instruction set with the release of Haswell.

The graphics core of the chip will also be carries over from Haswell, which means that it will feature DirectX 11.1 support to become a native-Windows 8 design.

Three displays and support for 4K resolution are being inherited and Broadwell chips should be able to deliver decent graphics performance.

Just like Haswell, the 2014 Intel CPUs will use the same mobile 947 pin and desktop LGA 1150 sockets, which means Intel is now going for a two generations cadence with its platforms.

Most specific specs are not available at this point in time since Intel is most probably still working on its silicon as well as on the new 14nm fabrication technology that it has to introduce together with the Broadwell CPUs.

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