Through sources close to Intel, we now have an update on the Pentium 4's progress as well as some behind the scenes information on why Intel canned their Timna processor.

The Pentium 4 (see our preview right here) is now targeted to launch in week 48 of this year. If our math is correct, that should put the launch around the end of November or beginning of December. This is a bit later than we previously expected, but we now know why the product will be delayed.

It turns out that ICH2 has an issue that only manifests with the i850 and i860 MCHs. Certain PCI cards run into a problem with certain commands that pre-fetch data from memory. Sometimes ICH2 will not invalidate pre-fetched data when it should. The issue is due to the interaction between the MCH and ICH2. From what we hear, Intel fully understands the problem, has solved it, and is doing a "low risk stepping" of ICH2 with a minor metal layer fix in order to get rid of the problem. Once again, this problem only occurs when ICH2 is matched to the i850 and i860 MCHs. Current ICH2 will not encounter this problem.

Named B1 prime, the new samples are going into production in week 41 and should be available in week 42. Intel's customers are being told to continue their validation testing using the B1 stepping of ICH2, and that B1 prime will not require any BIOS or motherboard design changes.

We have seen Intel's Folsom lab where the Pentium 4 chipset is being validated and have confidence that Intel will be able to fix what sounds like a minor problem. Intel has a large facility devoted specifically to making sure there are no major chipset issues. Having minor issues around launch time are common. With the complexity of today's processors and chipsets, companies including AMD, VIA, SiS and Intel all make steppings of their processors and chipsets after release as they discover small issues to fix. The point here is that it is not necessary to consider this a major problem for Intel.

The problems come when a major issue sneaks through validation, such as the noise problems three RIMM RDRAM solutions ran into when Intel initially launched their i820 chipset or the MTH issue Intel ran into, also related to RDRAM. If Intel runs into a major issue with the Pentium 4 or the i850 chipset after launch, then it is time to talk about Intel being in trouble.