Intel's Foster caught in de flagrante?

An Intel spin doctor at IDF took us aside at the beer-to-beer fest on Wednesday and asked us if we had any idea how the Japanese journos could score so many scoops on NDA'd stuff?

We admitted we hadn't an earthly, but one thing's for sure, those boys at Pricewatch in Japan are quick to get shots up on the Web.

If you take a look at this page, you'll see some pics of Willamette and a possible first bit of chip porn on its elder server brother, Foster.

We don't trust L&H Japanese-English software enough to say that its "translation" made any kind of sense…

But, thanks to kindly Japanese reader Reiji Yamada, we have a much better translation than anything L&H could ever do. And thanks to Firestone for the link.

Here's the translation:

"All of sudden, a glimpse of pentium 4 has appeared im Akihabara. A PC shop there began to display samples of a 423-pin socket and what is supposed to be a Pentium 4 for server use. Any customer can catch a glimpse of them at the shop.

"But they said the prices and date of arrival for these products are not set.

"It is the PC shop "Faith" that began the sample display. [this part was omitted in the original L&H 'translation' - Ed] along with a tag saying "Pentium 4, 'Willamette' only for display", socket 432 and Intel's next generation CPU are displayed

"As is widely acknowledged, the former is a CPU socket for the Pentium 4, whose code name is "Willamette" the latter, though it is not specified clearly, is a Pentium 4 for server use, whose code name is "Foster" integrated with large cache.

"The socket is made by Molex and we can see 'molex 423 PIN SOCKET' engraved on it. You might not notice this is a new socket as its outlook is almost the same as that of socket 370 or socket A. But if you look closely, you can find several small differences from other similar sockets.

"First of all, of course, pin numbers differ. A lever to fix a cpu is attached in the right side of a socket, opposite side of socket 370's.

"The number and positions of parts for fixing a heat sink to a cpu are also a little different. The size of a socket is a size larger than that of socket 370, but not so large.

"Strictly speaking, the CPU displayed along with the new socket is not Pentium 4 itself. It might be Pentium 4 for server use integrated with a large sized cache. The evidence is that they display this CPU, putting into a different CPU socket from socket 423.

"Though we cannot tell how many pins it has as we can see only outside of the parts, it must have 603 pins as Intel announced at IDF and other occasions.

"The CPU itself is a combination of a CPU die on a green base board(??) fixed on a large metal plate. What is impressive is that the plate is exceptionally bulky. Seeing this we can guess Pentium 4 disperse considerable amount of heat as some people worry.

"Incidentally, the below scripts are printed on the surface of the cpu though we have no idea what they mean for now.

INTEL CONFIDENTIAL
OV 16 ES A 4
C 015 T 000 - 0149
i ( m ) ( c ) '99 80528 KC 1. XG 1 M
D 015 T 001
0,751." ®