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Originally scheduled to launch in October 2003 with a 1.8GHz version and to add 1.9 and 2.0GHz versions in the first and second quarters of 2004 respectively, news that the Dothan processor with a 2MB L2 cache would be delayed to February was reported in November last year.

When the US chip giant delayed the launch late last year, it said that it would add a 1.7GHz version to the Dothan family and launch both 1.8 and 1.7GHz versions simultaneously.

Local makers said they are now uncertain when Intel will start actually delivering the Dothan processors, but they have rescheduled their production lines for deliveries in May. Some makers have been forced to replenish their stocks of 1.4GHz Pentium 4 processors while waiting for Dothan.

The sources speculated that Intel is focusing its relatively limited 90nm capacity on the desktop-use Prescott processors in order to better compete with AMD’s newly launched Athlon 64 3400+ processors for high-end desktop PCs. Some Taiwanese companies are already working on notebooks using the desktop-use Prescott processors. The delay of Dothan is not expected to affect the demand for Centrino notebooks, the sources said.