European OEMs have been told by chip giant Intel they will have to wait until the third week of July for supply of Coppermine processors.

The latest glitch in Intel's continuing problems in supplying its microprocessors is unlikely to affect very large tier one vendors such as Dell, but is a blow to the smaller tier two and tier three vendors.

One major European vendor told The Register this morning that the latest shortage applied to all CuMine parts. "My schedule just has a load of blank spaces until the end of July."

Two days back, Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel, warned of continuing shortages in the PC market which could last up to 18 months.

An Intel representative said that the firm would not comment, but re-iterated that additional investment would be put into manufacture, to the tune of $6 billion this year. ®