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Intel Corp. confirmed Monday earlier reports about postponement of the company’s forthcoming mobile platform code-named Sonoma. The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker will launch its consumer-oriented incarnation of Intel Centrino mobile technology only in 2005, not in 2004, as planned.

Sonoma Delay Now Official

The official statement from Intel came after a number of web-sites reported about the problems with Alviso – the core-logic, or the main component of every platform, that is behind the Sonoma – which were likely to push the commercial introduction of the new Centrino flavour forward.

“Our plans changed just this past week, and we are still in the midst of letting our customers know about our updated plans for the formal intro date. While we still plan to ship the platform in the second half of this year, the formal industry launch will now be targeted for early 2005,” Intel’s spokeswoman Barbara T. Grimes told X-bit labs.

The spokeswoman did not elaborate on the reason behind the delay of the highly-anticipated platform. Earlier some unofficial sources said that silicon for the chipset “did not meet Intel’s production standards”.

Plans Shifts Chase Intel?

It is not the first time for Intel to delay releases of its mobile products. Intel’s current flagship mobile offering – the Pentium M “Dothan” – was once planned to launch in mid-2003, but then delayed to Fall 2003, after which faced push into Q1 2004. Finally, the chip was released commercially in the second quarter of 2004.

The original Pentium M processor code-named Banias also faced a setback. The chip began to ship for revenue in late 2002, but was only officially introduced in March 2003.

More: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/...719045209.html

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