AMD could delay the launch of its upcoming Kaveri accelerated processing unit (APU) products until early 2014, according to anonymous sources in the PC manufacturing chain.
The first APU products to be built around the company's Steamroller architecture - designed for improved parallelism over existing Piledriver and Bulldozer chips and a target instructions per cycle (IPC) boost of around 30 per cent - Kaveri can't officially be delayed, as AMD has yet to offer a formal launch date. Previous roadmaps detailing the product had suggested, however, that the company is looking to release the chips some time in the second half of this year as a replacement for the existing FM2-compatible Trinity and Richland Piledriver-based APUs.
That shift, it has been claimed, will include the requirement for a new FM2+ motherboard - but those making the upgrade get improved general-purpose and graphics processing performance. Other rumours point to selected models including an on-board GDDR5 memory controller, borrowed from work done on the Jaguar APUs for Sony's PlayStation 4, and an ARM-based co-processor which can be used to enhance the security of the system or for low-power background tasks.
Now, however, industry rumour mill DigiTimes - which, it must be noted, is not always on-the-money when it comes to these predictions from its bank of Taiwanese industry sources - is claiming that AMD has suffered a slip to its manufacturing schedule which will see Kaveri delayed until February 2014. The site's anonymous sources give no reason for the slip, but claim that production samples will not be supplied to the company's customers until December this year - and will be limited to two models of top-end A10 APU and one high-middle A8, at that.
Should the site's sources prove accurate in their claims, the delay will have a knock-on effect: a retail 'launch' in February likely means that parts won't become readily available for a few months, with the sources claiming April 2014 as a likely availability date.
AMD, as is usual for the company, has refused to comment on what it describes as 'industry speculation surrounding unannounced products.'
The first APU products to be built around the company's Steamroller architecture - designed for improved parallelism over existing Piledriver and Bulldozer chips and a target instructions per cycle (IPC) boost of around 30 per cent - Kaveri can't officially be delayed, as AMD has yet to offer a formal launch date. Previous roadmaps detailing the product had suggested, however, that the company is looking to release the chips some time in the second half of this year as a replacement for the existing FM2-compatible Trinity and Richland Piledriver-based APUs.
That shift, it has been claimed, will include the requirement for a new FM2+ motherboard - but those making the upgrade get improved general-purpose and graphics processing performance. Other rumours point to selected models including an on-board GDDR5 memory controller, borrowed from work done on the Jaguar APUs for Sony's PlayStation 4, and an ARM-based co-processor which can be used to enhance the security of the system or for low-power background tasks.
Now, however, industry rumour mill DigiTimes - which, it must be noted, is not always on-the-money when it comes to these predictions from its bank of Taiwanese industry sources - is claiming that AMD has suffered a slip to its manufacturing schedule which will see Kaveri delayed until February 2014. The site's anonymous sources give no reason for the slip, but claim that production samples will not be supplied to the company's customers until December this year - and will be limited to two models of top-end A10 APU and one high-middle A8, at that.
Should the site's sources prove accurate in their claims, the delay will have a knock-on effect: a retail 'launch' in February likely means that parts won't become readily available for a few months, with the sources claiming April 2014 as a likely availability date.
AMD, as is usual for the company, has refused to comment on what it describes as 'industry speculation surrounding unannounced products.'
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