John,
RE:"Listening to Dell CC, statement by CFO, wish we could get more 700's (PIII), we could
sell all we could get"
WELL THAT SEEMS TO VERIFY THIS.....
Coppermines must really be in short supply if DELL can't get them.
To: +Paul Engel (79333 )
From: +Jim McMannis
Thursday, Nov 11 1999 12:06PM ET
Reply # of 79518
Paul,
Someone took the liberty of PMing me this article.
Coppermine Pentium IIIs tough to find
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
November 11, 1999, 4:00 a.m. PT
Intel announced its newest Pentium III processors more than two weeks
ago, but so far they
haven't been easy to find.
Nearly all major PC manufacturers and a number of retailers claim there
is a dearth of "Coppermine" Pentium
III processors, especially the fast 700-MHz and 733-MHz versions.
Individuals at two leading PC companies
say they barely have enough of the 733-MHz chips to perform testing or
make review systems.
Smaller manufacturers and chip dealers aren't even advertising the
700-MHz and 733-MHz products, which
were announced with 13 other processors on October 25.
"There's a ridiculous shortage of these chips," according to one
source who works at a major PC
manufacturer.
The situation markedly contrasts with the chipmaking giant's
normal course of business. Typically, when Intel
releases a new chip the supply pipeline has been well stocked so that
manufacturers can launch new systems
the day the processor is announced.
The shortage, likely caused by an earlier product delay, does not
appear severe enough to dent the
fourth-quarter financial performance of PC makers. Nonetheless,
aggravation is
rising among manufacturers and retailers. The four-day
Thanksgiving weekend,
the official beginning of the holiday buying season, is two weeks
away.
Although there's still time to get Coppermine products in front of
consumers, the
production cycle is being compressed, sources said. Business
systems using the
chip may not be available in great quantities until the end of the
year, another
source said.
When Intel comes out with its 820 chipset for combining
Coppermine Pentium IIIs
and Rambus memory on Monday, for instance, many PC makers
will announce
support for the combination. Few, however, will start shipping
products that day.
Supply will likely improve relatively soon, but the overall picture
remains unclear.
"They are in very short supply," said a source. "Allocation is bad
right now." Like
the other sources, this one spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Dealers who build their own systems and or sell processors to
consumers paint a similar, but slightly worse,
situation. Some supplies of 533-MHz and 600-MHz Coppermine
Pentium IIIs exist, but 700-MHz and 733-MHz
chips might not come to this segment of the market for weeks or
even months, dealer sources said.
Still, not everyone is grumbling.
"We're getting all the Coppermine processors that we need," said
one supplier of consumer and small
business systems. "But that's not surprising. We don't move the
volumes of Gateway or IBM."
George Alfs, an Intel spokesman, noted Dell has been shipping PCs
with the 700-MHz version of the chip
while Micron Electronics has been selling 733-MHz PCs.
"Demand is pretty hot, but we have been shipping a lot of products
in all speeds," he said. Earlier, Intel said
that it had manufactured "hundreds of thousands" of the chips last
quarter and will expand that number
greatly this quarter.
But the number of chips on the open market apparently remains low.
"This is a serious problem for which
someone needs to hold Intel accountable for," said yet another PC
manufacturer, who grumbled that
Coppermine shortages "add salt to the wounds of the 820 [chipset[
delay."
A spot check with Dell sales representatives illustrated some of the
supply constraints. The sales
representative did not predict an exact date when a 700-MHz system,
if ordered, could be delivered. A
600-MHz Coppermine system would be delivered by November 24,
although it could arrive earlier. A
non-Coppermine Pentium III running at 600-MHz could be had by
November 17, the representative said.
The chip giant isn't the first to experience a shortfall this year. A
dearth of "motherboard" components stifled
supplies of PCs based around AMD's Athlon processor for about six
weeks earlier this fall. Motorola also put
off its 500-MHz G4 processor because of defects.
Coppermine was the code name for a series of new,
high-performance Pentium III processors. When it
debuted, Intel announced 15 different versions for desktops, servers,
notebooks, and workstations.
The chips differ from previous Pentium IIIs chiefly because they
come with a fast secondary cache, sort of a
data reservoir, integrated onto the same piece of silicon as the
processor. Running at faster clock speeds,
the Coppermine chips also come with either a 100-MHz or 133-MHz
system bus.
The shortage may have been caused by earlier delays to the new
processors, theorized Nathan Brookwood,
principal at Insight 64. Earlier this summer, Intel delayed releasing
the Coppermine from September to
November. At the time, the company said it had a technical problem
which reduced the number of fast chips
that could be harvested from each silicon wafer.
In August, CEO Craig Barrett then promised that Intel would deliver
700-MHz Coppermine processors in
October.
The technical problems appear to be solved, said Brookwood.
However, the delay has meant that a stockpile
of processors wasn't built up.
"It's a little bit of a problem to be sure. Usually when they introduce a
chip, they have filled the pipeline," he
said.
News.com's Joe Wilcox contributed to this report |
