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Despite repeated assurances that Kaveri is a 2013 product, albeit with a tricky caveat, new information obtained by VR-Zone shows the APU is on track for a 2014 launch.



New slides obtained by VR-Zone show that Kaveri, AMD’s first APU to support HSA, will be launching into the channel in February 2014 and to OEMs shortly thereafter, after hitting mass production in December.

A source from within a Taiwan-based OEM told VR-Zone that their company had just received a production candidate sample for testing — a crucial step to identify bugs and incompatibilities before a mass production. If the company had just received a sample in late October, that will make for a tight testing window before mass production starts.

In late July, VR-Zone first confirmed that Kaveri would be delayed after a source in the Taiwan silicon supply chain provided copies of roadmaps and guidances given to OEMs at Computex. These guidances differed from what AMD had been telling investors and the press for the past six months at CES and Computex.

AMD’s response to news of Kaveri’s delay was confusing. When asked, Roy Taylor, AMD’s VP of channel sales, claimed that AMD never said the launch would be before Christmas, and the chip would be available shortly after its formal launch at CES. He chalked up delays to HSA’s marketing not yet being complete, saying the architecture itself was ready to go. An AMD PR official said in early August that, “[Kaveri] remains on track and will start shipping to customers in Q4 2013, with first public availability in the desktop component channel very early in Q1 2014.”

In the end, it looks like AMD will be launching Kaveri — albeit a paper launch — at CES in January. Some had expected the chip to be launched at the company’s much hyped APU conference in San Jose in November, but as AMD is not flying the press to the event, a launch then is highly unlikely.

With files from VR-Zone Chinese.