"Intel Corp. is canceling work on its next chip for desktop computers, the latest sign of technical difficulties at the semiconductor company.
People familiar with the situation said that the company will announce Friday that it is scrapping Tejas, Intel's code name for a forthcoming microprocessor, because of problems that are believed to include the chip's power consumption. Tejas was expected to be introduced in late 2004 or early 2005 and succeed Prescott, another internal name for a version of the Pentium 4 chip introduced in February. Engineers working on the Tejas design will be shifted to other chip projects, these people said.
Intel declined comment.
The Santa Clara, Calif., company has been grappling with a transition to a new manufacturing process that reduces lines of circuitry from 130 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, to 90 nanometers. Prescott, the first chip to use that process, has been saddled with unusually high power consumption, an issue that could also affect Tejas.
The most-powerful version of Prescott consumes 103 watts, compared with 89 watts for earlier Pentium 4 models. Higher wattage requires computer makers to add extra fans or take other steps to cool chips.
Dothan, the first chip for laptop computers that uses the 90-nanometer process, was delayed several months because of problems that caused high defect rates. But Dothan, and a predecessor chip dubbed Banias that was introduced last year, use power more efficiently than Prescott. Dothan will be formally introduced Monday, joining the Pentium M family that was begun with Banias.
Intel is believed to be considering desktop chips that borrow from the Pentium M technology. But one person familiar with the matter said the company may focus on efforts to make chips faster by putting the equivalent of two microprocessors on a single piece of silicon."
