Insiders at Intel have told The Register that while Merced remains living and breathing, McKinley, the generation after Merced, also has its problems. One Intel engineer told us today that Merced is now unlikely to be taped out until August at the earliest, while another hinted at problems with McKinley too. So the pressure is on at Intel. The McKinley problem demonstrates the compaction of job functions at Intel, an engineer explained. He said that trying to pull in too many "babes in the wood" had resulted in arguments between designers at every level in the firm. Further, he said, the market pressures had started to impact designers' "bottom lines". Most designers had job offers galore from the 120 companies in Silicon Valley, never mind the 30 startups in Austin, Texas. In those circumstances, "something had to give", he explained. Intel worldwide was unavailable for comment at press time. ®