We’ve known for quite some time that Intel’s Broadwell rollout would be a staggered process, with the first chips shipping late this year under the Core M brand and the rest of the models coming in 2015, but a new leaked document from Intel suggests the rollout will be even slower than we initially thought.

The updated document shows ultra-low power Broadwell processors shipping on schedule, but the more powerful chips won’t enter production until February or early March. These are the cores that would likely deploy in any MacBook Pro refresh. While Intel can typically ramp volume fairly quickly, it implies that Apple won’t be refreshing any of its mobile products on Broadwell until the tail end of Q1 or early Q2 of 2015. The PC OEMs are undoubtedly in a similar situation — Haswell will have to carry the mobile market for a second holiday season and into the new year.

Meanwhile, the desktop and high-end Broadwell flavors have been pushed back even farther; ready to ship (RTS) is now suggested as week 29-36 for the Broadwell “H” cores. These are the chips with integrated GT3e graphics and the associated L4 cache, and they’ve slipped back the most dramatically — from an estimated RTS in week 21-26 to 29-36.

The method to Intel’s madness (and its consequences)

There are several facets to this situation that bear consideration. First, Intel’s decision to focus on the low-power Broadwell cores is the smartest thing the company could do. Tablets are eating the PCs lunch, pushing “big cores” into small form factors is Intel’s overwhelming focus, and PC OEMs are still trying to build momentum around their own convertible PCs and ultrabook brands. After some rough starts, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, and HP have all focused on convertible systems (some with Bay Trail, some with Haswell) as the Next Big Thing.

The closer Intel can bring Broadwell to an iPad-like form factor, the better its chances of winning Apple’s business in the long term. Even if that never happens, it still needs to offer a compelling performance-per-watt story as compared to Apple’s steadily-improving A-family of processors. Unlike some, I think the chances that Apple will actually jump for its own homegrown chips as a laptop processor to be comparatively small — but Intel only keeps that unlikely if it continues offering Apple good reason to stick with the x86 status quo.

Are there downsides to this move? Probably a few. The desktop and enthusiast markets account for a smaller and smaller percent of total business, so Intel isn’t losing many sales — if you want to upgrade, you’re supposed to buy a Devil’s Canyon or Pentium P3258 this year, not wait for Broadwell. The 14nm shift still uses the much-maligned integrated voltage regulator (FIVR), so the chances that the desktop chips will have dramatically better performance than Haswell is fairly small. The integrated graphics and L4 cache are both exciting in terms of potential performance boosts, but neither of these is going to reinvent the wheel on desktops. Intel has even remained quiet on what GT3e will offer for graphics performance, though earlier rumors suggested the performance jump could be dramatic.

Intel hasn’t said anything regarding what these delays will do to its plans to roll out future Atom products or its next-generation Skylake architecture, but all signs point to delays across the board. Bay Trail tablets using Android have only barely begun to ship (the Asus MeMo Pad 7 has gotten decent reviews), and it’s unlikely that Intel will delay its 14nm launches into 2015 only to whip new architectures out 6-8 months later. The vaunted tick-tock cycle hasn’t stopped, but the clock is on the verge of missing a beat.