Dothan Delayed

[CentronMe]

I can't seem to place what they mean by "rare technological slip". If they mean Intel is always on time with their chips, which I think they do, I will not stop laughing anytime soon.

Intel Delays Shipments of New Mobile Processor
Wed January 14, 2004 11:43 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp. has delayed the roll-out of its new line of microprocessors for notebook computers by a few months after a recent validation test found problems, the world's largest chip maker said on Wednesday.

While Intel said the delay would not have a significant impact on first-quarter revenue, the issue represents a rare technological slip for the Santa Clara, California-based microchip leader.

The chip, which Intel has given the codename Dothan and is produced using Intel's most advanced manufacturing equipment, is now expected to be available in the second quarter, which runs between April and June, Intel said.

"We were disappointed that we did not begin shipping Dothan as planned," Intel President Paul Otellini said during a conference call to discuss Intel's fourth-quarter earnings.

"Although performance of the product is as we expected, our validation processes recently showed the need to make some circuit modifications to enable high-volume manufacturability."

Otellini said Intel had redesigned the circuits on the chip and had seen new versions working as they should.

Dothan is to be Intel's update to its Pentium-M line of processors, a key component of its Centrino brand of chips for portable computers.

Dothan is produced using some of the most advanced microchip production tools in the world, which are able to lay onto chip features as small as 90 nanometers, or billionths of a meter.

In previous public statements, Intel executives had targeted the end of last year for shipments of Dothan. Some in the industry had since expected Intel to release the chip in February.

Following billions of dollars of investment in its chip factories in recent years, Intel made a push to 90-nanometer production, which allows smaller, more powerful chips that consume less power.

Shipments of Prescott, a version of its Pentium 4 processor for desktop computers that also uses 90-nanometer production, started in the last quarter, Intel said.


© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

 

[SLee]

Oh well, its not like they actually have any competition for the performance/watt capabilities of Banias, or that Banias has had any trouble in capturing a large segment of the mobile market in such a short time period.

 

[xonik]

...except for the Transmeta Efficeon, which supposedly has better clock-for-clock performance AND lower power dissipation. Of course, the Efficeon has how many design wins again?

Maybe when the low-voltage Athlon 64-Ms enter the market in force, the Pentium M line will receive some serious competition, but until then, I hope for the best for Dothan and its variants.

 

[FreiDOg]

'Efficeon' is an 8 instruction issue VLIW architecture, i would certainly hope it can do more per clock than Banais or Athlon64,

of course, that's dependant on being able to pack an x86 stream into a VLIW word. Which a far more difficult task than AMD or Intel's schedulars have....

and isn't Efficeon only avalible at 1.1ghz right now?

it's a big step up from Crusoe in the performance side of things, but then again, so is a low end mobile Celeron...



I dobut AMD is taking off in the mobile market, even with A64 at reasonable power levels, Athlon4 Mobile was a nice little mobile chip, solid performer, decent power consumption, and it didn't exactly make a splash...

 

[xonik]

Right, that's where the clock-for-clock reference came in. Maybe Transmeta will see more clock scaling success in the 90 nanometer fabrication process. I hear that they will be employing Fujitsu for that step.

And I doubt that AMD will really impact the Pentium M sales, like you implied, but if the desktop Athlon 64 continues to gain followers from the big OEMs, then the mobile version might enjoy more success than previous attempts from AMD.