Intel's "Haswell" chip is now shipping to major PC makers, a source close to the company told CNET today.

According to Intel, this new chipset is the next in the line to power ultrabooks, tablets and laptops. Promised is a huge leap in battery life which will remain the challenge in portable devices for the foreseeable future.

Intel posted a press release saying:

4th gen Core is on track for a mid-year launch. Intel issued a PCN documenting a chipset USB errata and stating that chipsets with the errata will be in production during the initial ramp. But Intel has confirmed that there is no chance of data loss or corruption. This issue has only been observed with a small subset of USB SuperSpeed thumb drives and does not affect other USB peripherals. We take all customer issues seriously and should any customer have a question or concern they can always contact Intel customer support.



Guys, what happened to the cool names? Haswell?