Intel's Merom taped out ahead of schedule

Intel's Merom was taped out a month ahead of schedule, The Inquirer reports. This means the first working silicon samples should be available within a few weeks.

The Merom motherboards have already been running solid for months, using tweaked Yonahs to stand in for the new CPUs.

The Inq heard Intel's Napa64 platform is really solid right now. The first chips should be on the market earlier than expected, most likely in Q3 2006.