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Intel Corp. has delayed the release of its 3GHz Pentium 4 processor due to anomalies in the new chip.
George Alfs, a spokesman for the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker, said that in recent testing, engineers “found an anomaly with” the chip, which was scheduled to be released last week, along with a chip set for high-end PCs.
Alfs would not elaborate on the nature of the problems but said they involved only the Pentium 4 chips that support a new 800MHz front-side bus in the 875P chip set, formerly known as Canterwood. A 3.06GHz Pentium 4 with a 533MHz front-side bus has been shipping since November. Alfs was unsure how long the delay will be, saying only that Intel officials said they expect it to ship soon.
Long delays can be a problem for chip makers, analysts said. Advanced Micro Devices Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., was scheduled to release the desktop version of its 64-bit Hammer architecture before the end of last year. However, since that chip—the Athlon 64—was delayed until September, AMD lost its jump on Intel.