Intel commits to 4GHz Prescott P4 by Q4 '04

Intel promised to ship a 4GHz Pentium 4 by the end of 2004, company President Paul Otellini said yesterday during the company's regular autumn analysts conference.

The 4GHz part will, of course, be Intel's 90nm 'Prescott' chip. Otellini said the company will ramp up its 90nm process aggressively through next year. He expects 60 per cent of Intel's desktop CPU shipments to be Prescotts come Q2 2004.

He also confirmed what we'd seen from the company's internal roadmaps, that the chip giant will ship 90nm Celerons next year. We expect the first 90nm Celeron, based on the same core as Prescott, to ship in the second quarter, at 2.8GHz and 3.06GHz.

Prescott is roadmapped to reach 4GHz in Q4 2004, with 3.6GHz and 3.8GHz versions arriving in Q2 and Q3, respectively. Today's 130nm 'Northwood' P4s are expected to hang around until Q3 - come Q4 and Intel will only be offering 90nm P4s, though there will still be Northwood-based Celerons in the mix.

Otellini also said he expects to ship plenty more mobile processors next year. His comment co-incided with the publication of numbers from market watcher IDC which show the company's Centrino platform accounts for 42 per cent of the mobile PC market.

IDC also reckons Centrino market penetration will ramp up significantly during the current and next quarter on the back of increased demand for Wi-Fi enabled devices. ®

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