Intel Ivy Bridge delayed to April?

Rumoured next-gen Intel Ivy Bridge processor model numbers have appeared along with a reported delay of the 22nm processors until April of next year.

Originally destined to arrive before the end of the year, rumours of a delay until at February/March of next year have circulated widely over the last few months.

A new CPU World report claims that an Ivy Bridge launch event is now scheduled for April, without citing any sources other than "new information".

The April launch will reportedly feature third-generation Core i5 and Core i7 desktop and mobile processors. Chinese site Zol.com.cn also reported last week on the new model numbers of the 3000-series of Core i5 and i7 processors.

It seems that Intel’s numbering scheme will replace the ‘2’ with a ‘3’ and add 50, so the old Core i5-2400 will be superceded by the Core i5-3450. Additionally new ‘S’ models are reported to appear with an extra 300MHz.

The reasons for the delay have variously been attributed to a lack of desire to push the market as hard based on continuing weak financial conditions and hiccups in manufacturing the new 22nm process.

With AMD also rumoured to be suffering manufacturing issues prompting a switch of chip fab from GlobalFoundries to TSMC, Intel may also not be under the usual sort of pressure to jump to the next process shrink as it has in the past.