Intel launches first 14-nanometre processor for thin fanless PCs

Intel has launched a generation of processors with the smallest transistors ever featured in a commercial product. The Core M chip is the first in the family of Intel's next-generation Broadwell processors.

To coincide with Intel's launch at Berlin's IFA tech conference, several firms - including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo - unveiled laptop-tablet hybrids featuring the new processor.

The Core M is intended to be the most basic version of Broadwell. More powerful releases destined for desktop PCs and high-end laptops should become available early next year.

Experts said some manufacturers have had to delay product launches as a consequence.

But they added that Intel should not have lost business, because it still had a significant lead over its PC chip rival AMD when it came to CPU (central processing unit) development.

"Intel has a year-and-a-half to a two-year advantage over AMD in processing technology based on announced products," said Sergis Mushell, research director at the tech consultancy Gartner.

"Fourteen nanometre is not an easy thing to achieve - it's an industry first - so it's not the case that Intel is falling behind the rest of the industry.