Intel Kaby Lake could be delayed to late 2016

Late last month there were rumors that Intel has replaced its 10nm Cannonlake with the 14nm Kaby Lake due to difficulties with its 10nm process. Now DigiTimes claims Kaby Lake was originally scheduled for early 2016 but has already been pushed back to September 2016 for the consumer version and January 2017 for the enterprise models.

The site believes Intel is still planning to launch the 10nm Cannonlake and explains the 14nm Kaby Lake platform will act as a buffer between the 14nm Skylake, which will succeed the 14nm Broadwell, and the 10nm Cannonlake. This seems like a change in Intel's strategy as this means the company will have three 14nm architectures instead of the usual tick-tock model.

Intel is currently planning to launch its 14nm Skylake processors for desktops in August and for notebooks in the fourth quarter. Intel's Cannonlake processors, which were originally planned to directly succeed Skylake in 2016, have been postponed and Intel has inserted the 14nm Kaby Lake platform between them as a buffer.

With the enterprise version of Kaby Lake processors being postponed to 2017, most notebook brand vendors' RFQ processes, which are usually in May-July, have been delayed by 3-6 months. Dell's RFQ process for its Kaby Lake-based enterprise notebooks is expected to start in January 2016.