Intel reportedly delayed the launch of its next-generation "Skylake" desktop CPUs to August 2015, from its usual schedule of launching new CPUs each Q2. Skylake is Intel's next-generation CPU architecture, built on the company's new 14 nanometer silicon fab process. Sources in the motherboard industry based out of Taiwan tell DigiTimes that launch of Skylake and its companion 10-series chipset, and hence they won't be able to show their latest products at this year's Computex trade-show, in June. Intel is either tweaking production of its new chips, or is waiting for the market to digest inventories of its current-generation products.

The transition between DDR2 and DDR3 system memory types was slower than the one between DDR and DDR2. DDR3 made its mainstream debut with Intel's X38 and P35 Express platforms, at a time when the memory controller was still within the domain of a motherboard chipset, at least in Intel's case. The P35 supported both DDR2 and DDR3 memory types, and motherboard manufacturers made high-end products based on each of the two memory types, with some even supporting both.

Higher module prices posed a real, and higher latencies, posed a less real set of drawbacks to the initial adoption of DDR3. Those, coupled with the limited system bus bandwidth, to take advantage of DDR3. DDR3 only really took off with Nehalem, Intel's first processor with an integrated memory controller (IMC). An IMC, again in Intel's case, meant that the CPU came with memory I/O pins, and could only support one memory type - DDR3. Since then, DDR3 proliferated to the mainstream. Will the story repeat itself during the transition between DDR3 and the new DDR4 memory introduced alongside Intel's Core i7 "Haswell-E" HEDT platform? Not exactly.

Intel's presentation for Italian technology conference 3D Revolution 2014 was leaked to the web, revealing the company's most up-to-date desktop CPU roadmap, which looks deep into 2015. It reveals a wealth of new information. To begin with the HEDT (high-end desktop) segment, Intel plans to drag Core i7 "Ivy Bridge-E" through Q3-2014, and launch its succeeding Core i7 "Haswell-E" processor close to Q4-2014, or late into Q3, which would pin its launch some time in September 2014. "Haswell-E" is built in the new socket LGA2011-3 package, and is supported exclusively by Intel X99 Express chipset. It also heralds DDR4 memory to the consumer space. "Haswell-E" will have its reign till late-Q3 2015, when Intel plans to launch Core i7 "Broadwell-E," which is built in the same package, and supported by the same X99 platform, but based on a swanky new 14 nm silicon.

Things get interesting with the company's mainline desktop processors. Intel recently launched its "Haswell" Refresh silicon, and is bound to launch their unlocked variants, codenamed "Devil's Canyon," on the 25th of June. Built in the LGA1150 package, "Haswell" Refresh runs on both 8-series and 9-series chipset. Intel's 9-series chipset was originally designed to launch alongside the company's first processors built on the 14 nm silicon fab process, codenamed "Broadwell," which is an optical shrink of "Haswell," with a few minor tweaks and speed bumps, just as "Ivy Bridge" was to "Sandy Bridge." Intel's "Broadwell" chips are now expected to debut in Q1-2015, probably along the sidelines of the 2015 International CES. These chips will be supported by existing LGA1150 motherboards, some with BIOS updates.

Intel answered the burning question some of us had about what the desktop chipset that succeeds the 9-series will be named. For now, Intel is referring to it as "100-series," on early internal roadmap documents scored by VR-Zone. Much like the current 9-series, 100-series will consist of a single PCH silicon, from which several variants will be carved out by toggling features.

There will be four primary kinds of "Skylake" packages, SLK-S, which will be socketed LGA; SLK-U, which will likely be compact, ultra-low power BGA, for Ultrabooks; SLK-Y, which will probably be mainstream BGA for compact desktops and all-in-ones; and SLK-H, which will likely be mainstream BGA for conventional notebooks. This generation of CPUs and PCHs, will also be accompanied by four kinds of wireless network controllers, depending on the target form-factor, "Snowfield Peak" Wi-Fi + Bluetooth, "Douglas Peak" WiGig + Bluetooth, "Pine Peak" WiGig, and XMM726x 4G LTE controllers; and "Jacksonville" GbE wired Ethernet controller. Thunderbolt standard will undergo an evolution with the company's "Alpine Ridge" controller.

Intel's upcoming Thunderbolt host controller, codenamed "Alpine Ridge," could allow you to play God with several uncompressed Ultra HD video streams during production, if its leaked specifications hold up. The controller leverages PCI-Express gen 3.0 to double bandwidth of the interface. It will launch around the same time as Intel's next-generation Core "Skylake" processors (some time in 2015), and in a typical implementation, will be wired to the CPU's root-complex, and not that of the PCH. With PCIe 3.0 x4 or PCIe 3.0 x2 links at its disposal, the controller can push data at a staggering 40 Gbps. The link can also ferry DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0, and USB 3.0 data through its link layer. That bandwidth should enable you to plug in up to two Ultra HD displays, apart from your storage array.

The Thunderbolt connector itself will undergo a change with the arrival of Alpine Ridge. It will be slimmer (shorter) than the current connector, at 3 mm (good for Ultrabooks), and there will be adapters for backwards compatibility with older-generation Thunderbolt devices. The connector will be designed to supply up to 100W of power, so Ultrabooks based on it will do away with round DC jacks, and charge up much like tablets and smartphones do. That amount of power should also enable single-cable HDD docks and RAID boxes. There will be two main variants of Alpine Ridge, one that supports two ports over daisy-chaining, and one that supports just a single port.

Intel delayed its Core "Broadwell" SoCs for desktops and notebooks to the first quarter of 2014, owing to production delays facing the 14 nanometer silicon fabrication node that the chips are based on. These issues, according to Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, could limit the company's ability to ship enough quantities of functioning chips, and so the company is ironing out its fab problems first. The delay, however, shouldn't have a cascading effect on "Skylake," the successor to "Broadwell," which is based on the same fab process. Skylake's position on the long-term company roadmaps is unaffected. "Broadwell" is a particularly important micro-architecture for Intel, which is struggling to get itself on to mainstream "post-PC" devices such as tablets.

Even though AMD's next-generation Kaveri APU, based on the Steamroller x86 CPU, GCN (Graphics Core Next) GPU, and HUMA memory architecture might not arrive until late in 1H of 2014, its successor is already named and being worked on by AMD. Carizo, successor to Kaveri, will arrive sometime in 2015, we are betting before the end of 1H 2015, and will feature further improvements in AMD's big APU push.

While nothing is confirmed, Carizo most probably packs AMD's next-in-line Excavator CPU core and perhaps an improved GCN based GPU core. Memory architecture will undoubtedly feature further improvements, in line with AMD's big push for heterogeneous computing and unified memory.

Intel's first chips based on the company's new, and Industry first, 14-nanometer manufacturing process are expected to hit markets in late 2015. With Skylake, Intel will introduce their new 9th-generation Intel HD IGP. The new platform will be the first to bring dual-channel DDR4 memory support. Skylake won't be the first platform to support DDR4 memory. In the 2H of 2014, Intel will launch their enthusiast grade Haswell-E platform, with support for quad-channel DDR4 memory. Skylake will be more of an evolution of Broadwell, which in turn is essentially an die shrink of Haswell to 14nm.

Additionally, the new mainstream platform will bring in support for PCI-E 4.0, essentially doubling the bandwidth offered by the current PCI-E 3.0 standard. More powerful GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD should be able to take advantage of the improved bandwidth, as their cards keep getting more and more powerful with each passing generation. Skylake will also introduce support for SATA Express. The advantage? SATA Express allows for a max bandwidth of about 16 Gb/s, more than 2.5x the 6 Gb/s bandwidth offered by the current SATA standard. While the product slide doesn't specify exactly as to when the first Skylake based products are scheduled to hit the market, our best guess places it at the end of 2015.