If one is to believe a supposedly leaked Intel roadmap on Japanese website PC Watch, Intel might kill off a CPU standard-- the current Land Grid Array (LGA) socket will give way to Ball Grid Array (BGA).
The current LGA socket is an 8-year old technology where the actual contacts are on the motherboard while the contact points are on the CPU.
On the other hand BGA technology involves directly attaching chips on circuit boards via small balls of solder.
BGA is already used for DRAM, embedded CPUs and other surface-mount chips, but is more difficult to troubleshoot and repair-- and does not allow for PC CPU upgrades.
It would also mean the end of selling separate Intel CPUs and 3rd party motherboards, since OEMs would have to hard-mount CPUs themselves.
According to the leaked roadmap Haswell is the last Intel chipset marked as an LGA package. Broadwell parts follow as dual- and quad-core system-on-a-chip (SoC) with 47-57W TDPs soldered to the motherboard via BGA.
Keep in mind the PC Watch roadmap lacks Intel confidentiality furniture, and our analysis is primarily based on machine translation.
A move towards BGA CPUs might make sense for Intel-- desktop PC sales are dropping, and the industry appears to be moving towards embedded chips for use in laptops, tablets and smartphones (all devices with soldered-on CPUs). Customers also tend to hang on to their systems for longer these days, only upgrading GPUs for an extra power boost.
Again, this is only based on hearsay. Intel might still keep standard x86 options around, particularly if it senses consumer demand for such chips. Either way we will learn more on Intel's future PC plans once Haswell launches in 2013.