The current shortage of 14nm chips forces Intel to bring an old CPU out of retirement-- specifically the Pentium G3420, a 22nm processor offering all of 2 cores and 3.2GHz base frequency released way back in 2013.
The news comes with a Product Change Notification (PCN) announcing the Haswell-era Pentium processor is no longer being discontinued. Dated 5 December 2019, it announces a "new roadmap decision" bringing the Pentium G3420 back in the long term. In fact, it will be produced until May 2020, and the last shipment date is set for December 2020. Not too shabby for a 6-year old lower-tier processor featuring no hyperthreading and support for up to GDDR3 1600 RAM.
The revival comes as the industry continues to face a shortage of Intel processors-- one so bad Dell is accusing Chipzilla of affecting quarterly revenues. A number of PC makers and OEMs are now looking to AMD in order to allay the chip shortage, and some might point out bringing back a 22nm product might not be the best solution, at least for Intel.
In the meantime, the 2019 Credit Suisse technology conference sees Intel CEO Bob Swan present plans for upcoming processor launches, as well as an explanation for the current CPU shortage. Apparently in-house smartphone modem production lead to Intel not fully focusing on CPUs, bringing the failure to meet 14nm product demand. The company also admits the production of 10nm CPUs did not go according to plan, leading to a Q4 2021 launch for the first 7nm CPUs, with 5nm products to follow by H2 2024.
