Intel pushes Pentium 4 chip

Intel has tried to deflect concerns about delays in reintroducing the Pentium III processors that were recalled in August, by saying that it wanted to push Pentium 4 out of the door first.

Speaking at this week's Microprocessor Forum, Bill Siu, vice president of Intel's architecture group, said: "We don't see a lot of demand for the Pentium III 1.13Ghz in the fourth quarter and we're probably looking at next year for it to ship."

The 1.13Ghz Pentium III was recalled in August because of a problem that could cause certain applications to freeze.

The company is now keen to put more emphasis on its Pentium 4 processors which could be available next month. They will be aimed at PC enthusiasts at the high end of the market.

Intel also said it plans to break the 1Ghz barrier in the mobile space by the second half of next year. Bob Jackson, an engineer at Intel's mobile products group, said the mobile market has grown enormously with about 60 per cent of the notebooks shipped this year in the 'thin and light' category.

He said Intel's forthcoming mobile chip will not be a "brand new processor", but confirmed that Pentium IIIs will run at 1Ghz as standard.

In 2002, Intel intends to introduce two new processors: one for the high end of the market and the other addressing the thin and light, and sub-notebook market.

Separately, Intel rival AMD demonstrated a computer powered by dual AMD Athlon processors, its first multiprocessor implementation of the Athlon chip. Called the AMD-760MP chipset, it features next-generation double data rate memory.

Rich Heye, vice president and general manager at AMD's Texas microprocessor division, said: "The demonstration brings AMD one step closer to enabling our customers to offer next-generation dual processor workstations and servers powered by AMD processors."

He added that the dual processor platform is designed to take the AMD Athlon processor into the enterprise markets that require multiprocessing workstation and server solutions.