Intel may be a couple of months away from launching its Core "Haswell" processor family, and the 8-series "Lynx Point" family of chipset to back it, but is already talking to partners about the platform's successor, slated for the second quarter of 2014. Core "Haswell" introduces the industry to socket LGA1150 motherboards, and Core "Broadwell" could, in all likelihood, provide continuity to it, much in the same way "Ivy Bridge" did to "Sandy Bridge." Intel could introduce a new chipset to tag along with "Broadwell."

According to a roadmap slide seen by VR-Zone, Intel's 9-series chipset will include at least two models, the Z97 targeting enthusiasts, and the H97 targeting mainstream consumers. These chipset could drive socket LGA1150 motherboards going into the second half of 2014, and could support both "Haswell" and "Broadwell," in the same way today's 7-series chipset support "Sandy Bridge" and "Ivy Bridge." Intel could introduce a major feature with 9-series, SATA Express.

The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the industry consortium dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of Serial ATA (SATA) technology, today announced that SATA Express, a new specification that standardizes PCI Express (PCIe) as an interface for client storage, has started the ratification process. The specification has moved into the member review stage, the final step prior to the specification's release to SATA-IO members. SATA Express will be available to the general public in the next version of the specification, expected to be completed in 2013.

SATA Express enables an ecosystem for client storage in which SATA and PCIe solutions can coexist, providing a low-cost solution to fully utilize the performance of next generation solid state drives (SSDs) and hybrid drives. PCIe technology enables interface speeds of up to 1GB/s per lane in the client space, as compared to today's SATA technology at 0.6GB/s. Storage devices not requiring the speed of SATA Express will continue to be served by existing SATA technology. The specification will define new SATA Express device connectors and motherboard connectors that will support both new PCIe drives and existing SATA devices. See this page for more details.