Problems which Intel admitted with its Coppermine core last week point to the platform giving little performance boost. But sources close at Intel suggest that Willamette, as reported here earlier, is the chip giant's secret weapon. The sources told us earlier today that there cannot be a problem with the .18 micron process itself, so it must be the Coppermine design. Only ten days ago, Intel introduced a .18 micron mobile processor, and as reported here, said it would have three or four fabs running .18 micron by early next year. Allied to that, Intel's problems with Direct Rambus versus the PC-133 and the problem of what to do with the Celeron processor are all conspiring to give Santa Clara a big headache. He said: "You remember how when the Pentium III was launched, it offered little performance boost to the Pentium II. Intel is doing the same with Coppermine and merely tweaking the core." According to him, Intel is delaying Coppermine all the better to unleash secret weapon Willamette with all that cash. That will have a completely different core, large amounts of on-die cache, and will also command large price premiums. ®