That delay painted the company in a bad light because it followed a
string of glitches, including the discovery of defects in Grantsdale (a chip
set for use with the Pentium 4 processor), the scrapping of the planned
Tejas processor because it dissipated too much power and ran too hot, and
delays to the Dothan Pentium M mobile processor.
Those problems culminated in the public release of a memo from Intel CEO
Craig Barrett, exhorting the company's employees to get past the
difficulties.
"There are many reasons for these [product delays and manufacturing
issues], but in the end the reasons don't matter because the result is
less-satisfied customers and a less-successful Intel," Barrett wrote at the
time. "I believe, as you do, that this is not the Intel we all know and that
it is not acceptable."
Rather than painting today's P4 revelation as another problem, Intel is
positioning the move as a way to focus the company's processor roadmap on
factors other than clock speed.
"I think we're really focused on end-user benefits, such as ease of use,
security and hyperthreading," the Intel spokesman said.
On the proactive side, Intel said it will move ahead with P4-class
processors that are fitted with 2 MB caches. Those caches will come to parts
throughout the Prescott line during the coming year. (Prescott is the 90-nm
P4.)
Multicore processors are also a big part of Intel's future plans; the
first such CPUs are due in 2005.
