Intel is once again delaying the launch of its next generation 10nm Cannon Lake processors, with mass production of the chips now expected for 2019 instead of the end of 2018 as originally planned, through Engadget . For those who have not been up to date with Intel's internal code names, Cannon Lake is Intel's next 10nm chip architecture, and the company's next step toward creating smaller and faster processors.
Last year, when Intel first launched its eighth generation of Core chips, the company broke with the previous policy by announcing that the product line would consist of a combination of multiple architectures. The line launched with a revised version of the seventh generation 14nm + node (Kaby Lake R), and earlier this month saw the launch of chips built on the 14nm ++ node (Coffee Lake), Intel also promised that we would see the eighth generation chips from the next-generation 10nm Cannon Lake node too, which Intel originally planned to launch in 2016.
Part of the delay comes from the increasing breakdown in Moore's Law: as we get closer to smaller and smaller transistor sizes, It becomes increasingly difficult for companies like Intel to keep up with the double of two years that Moore's Law demands. That's also why we're seeing things like the Kaby Lake R and Coffee Lake releases, or AMD's updated Ryzen 2 chips, which seek to improve existing technologies on the current node instead of trying to force an early jump to the smaller size .
Intel is not coming out of the best weeks on the news: Apple reportedly plans to drop Intel processors for its Mac computers as early as 2020, and last week Intel abruptly abandoned its Vaunt smart glasses project ( not to mention the disastrous debacle of Meltdown and Specter earlier this year). That said, Intel exceeded quarterly earnings estimates this week, posting a record $ 16.07 billion in revenue largely due to the strength of its PC processor and data center businesses, so it does not exactly count the famous manufacturer of chips still.