Intel to "do a PII"

The Pentium 4 is going to be a very important move for Intel, considering AMD's current position in the market at least, and the company came out in the open last night and promised to have the chip readily available in large quantities for its launch on November 20th of this year, likening the campaign to that of the Pentium II and not its flakily available successor. For Intel to meet this goal, they will need to make several positive moves, by decreasing the chip size and improving the yield (last reports suggested 30% of current yields went bad!) and getting some new fabs online.

The problem may be though that if current yields are so small, Intel may overshoot on its promises; after all, 7/10 chips per wafer being fabricated is a big underrun in terms of the numbers Intel are talking about. As we reported yesterday, prices are definitely in AMD's favour, but if Intel shift their weight and sort out the yields, numbers may not be. After all, the company has far more fabs than AMD, and even if the latter works non-stop from now till Christmas, Intel could still produce more chips. Can Intel bounce back and take this Christmas? We'll see.