Intel's next-gen 'Haswell' chip now shipping to PC makers

[Gecko]

The chipmaker is shipping its most power-efficient mainstream processor to date, a source tells CNET. Intel also confirmed a bug in the accompanying chipset today.

aswell, expected by June, is the next-generation mainstream Intel processor[/url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_%28microarchitecture%29] that will power ultrabooks and a variety of hybrids that straddle tablet[/url=http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/] and laptop designs. Haswell's new microarchitecture [/url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microarchitecture] will deliver "the single largest generation-to-generation battery life improvement in Intel history," according to a recent statement from Intel CEO Paul Otellini.

Intel is also expected to reiterate that its next-generation Atom chip for smartphones, "Merrifield," will be shipping to customers by the end of the year.

And "Bay Trail," its next-gen Atom chip for tablets, will be in products by the end of the year.

The quad-core Bay Trail chip is Intel's "most powerful Atom processor to date" and "doubles the performance of the current tablet chip, 'Clover Trail+,'" according to recent statements from the company.

Both Bay Trail and Merrifield are based on an overhauled Atom microarchitecture that uses out-of-order execution[/url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-order_execution], not unlike Intel's mainstream Core processors.

Update: Intel sent out the following note to the media Friday afternoon. Note that chipsets with the bug, aka errata, will be "in production" during the initial ramp, which is taking place this

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