AMD to Release Zen in Q4 2016 Suggests Report

Ever since AMD launched the much maligned Bulldozer CPUs, fans have been waiting for chips that would be competitive performance wise with Intel. Next year, however, that is set to change with the launch of the new Zen architecture. Set to provide up to 40% increase in IPC and performance, many are hoping the new chip will provide what it takes to revitalize the CPU market.

While many had hoped that Zen would arrive quickly in 2016, the latest report appears to show that those hopes will be dashed. According to those in the motherboard industry, Zen won’t be launching till Q4 2016, the last 3 months of the year. This will also likely be behind Intel’s Skylake refresh, Kaby Lake and around the time that the enthusiast Skylake-E series launch. With a late 2016 launch, AMD risks introducing a product in between an upgrade cycle. A Q4 launch would also place it behind the back to school season but might make it in time for the 2016 holiday sales.

Sources are speculating that the delayed launch is due to issues with GlobalFoundries’ 14nm process. This process was created in partnership with Samsung so it’s likely Samsung also won;t be able to supply any chips to AMD earlier. GlobalFoundries has been a source of problems for AMD with delays to the 28nm and later 20nm nodes causing either poorer than expected performance or some say even product cancelations.

Thank you DigiTimes for providing us with this information