Intel Corporation has delayed initial shipments of the latest Pentium 4 microprocessor after a potential flaw was discovered in tests.
The chip-making giant planned to launch the 3-gigahertz chip on Monday but delayed shipments after the potential flaw was uncovered, Intel spokesperson Laura Anderson said on Tuesday.
The problem does not affect previously released chips.
”Engineers are working around the clock just trying to understand the issue, find the root cause and determine how to resolve it,” she said.
”And, basically, get it shipping as soon as possible.”
Some of the flawed chips were delivered to computer makers, but those systems won’t be sold until any problem is resolved, she said.
Anderson declined to provide specifics on the nature of the problem or how it might affect performance.
The delayed chip is mainly different from its predecessors in that its system bus runs at 800 megahertz compared with 533 megahertz in older chips.
The system bus shuttles data between the processor and memory. ‒ Sapa-AFP