Intel's Haswell (Shark Bay Platform) roadmap has been leaked which shows that engineering sample of the Haswell processors are already being shipped while mass production of the retail models would commence in Q4 2012.
The Haswell processors according to Intel's Tick-Tock model are a Tock based on the 22nm 3D transistor technology featuring increased IPC and an improved Instruction set which would enable for better performance at higher efficiency.
Haswell would be supported by the latest Lynx Point chipset which launches in Q1 2013, The motherboards would feature the Socket LGA1150 ruling out compatibility with older generation processors. The smaller package (22x23mm FCBGA) of the chipset would allow for better power efficiency over Panther Point and allow native support for USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s and support for Quad speed SPI Devices, More details on the Lynx Point chipset here.
According to the roadmap, Haswell engineering samples are already out which are currently in their Pre-Alpha state, New batches would arrive by June and August. In October, The beta testing phase would open and qualification sample testing in November. After these tests, The Haswell processors would go under mass production by the end of 2012 in December.
Retail Samples would hit the market in March-June 2013, We already detailed this in our earlier post revealed through a different slide, More details here.
Chiphell member and hardware leaker Bigpao007 has already accquired such sample of the Haswell CPU. A dual core model which runs at 2.0GHz and Turbo Core around 2.5GHz range. Hyper Threading is supported as seen from the 4 threads, The L3 Cache is associated in 16-way compared to Ivy bridge's 12-way in dual core versions.
More news on the Haswell - Shark Bay platform and Lynx Point motherboard are expected as launch nears, For now Intel is preparing the launch of its latest Ivy Bridge 22nm processors which arrive on 23rd April 2012.
