Stefan Mileschin

Fashion bag maker Intel has denied that there will be delays to its Haswell chip, after JMP Securities started to believe that it would be late.

JMP downgraded Intel shares to "Market Perform" from "Outperform" after one of its bean counters Alex Gauna became convinced that the chip maker may be at risk of delays with "Haswell".

He said that Intel's effort to integrate a voltage regulation stage into the Haswell architecture appears to have fallen short of desired results. This meant that the company is consequently reversing course and not pursuing this power management scheme with subsequent products.

He discovered the problem during a chat over tea and a sticky bun with several power management partners at the APEC (Applied Power Electronics Conference) trade show that was held March 17-21, 2013. Apparently they were just told about Intel's change of direction recently.

But soon after the announcement Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy got on the blower to Barron's to assert there are no problems at all with Haswell.

He said that Haswell was healthy and on track for an announcement and there was no problem with the Haswell part at all.

Mulloy said that Haswell was on track to provide Chipzilla with the biggest improvement in battery life in the company's history.

Not only will Haswell be a major milestone it's on time, he added.

Mulloy referred to previous remarks about Haswell made by management during the company's January conference call. At that time Intel said it had started production on Haswell, which we expect to qualify for sale this quarter.

It is rare that Intel responds to the speculation of analysts, journalists and fashion consultants.

http://news.techeye.net/chips/intel-...haswell-delays