Avid Sharky Extreme readers know from our earlier articles about Intel that P3 CPUs manufactured on the .25 micron manufacturing process were scheduled to move to Intel's highly-anticipated .18 micron process by September of this year.

This is still the case, although Intel officially says now that November is the new date that the first P3 CPUs manufactured at a .18mu process (code named Coppermine) will be available. This left a large time gap at the high end of Intel's desktop CPU segment between the P3-550 CPU (launched in May) and the P3-600 Coppermine CPU (originally scheduled for September, but later moved to November).

In order not to suffer from a lack of product launches and to keep the large wheel of progress from grinding to a halt, Intel quickly decided on and implemented the changes that allowed today's .25 micron P3-600 CPU to be manufactured in bulk for an early August launch date.

Believe it or not however, Sharky Extreme is now hearing rumors from strategic partners of Intel's that a possible September launch of both the new .18 micron Coppermine P3s and their mainboard host chipset (the Intel i820 Camino core logic AGPset) is becoming more and more possible, which would be a very savvy marketing move by the semiconductor giant.

This chain of events is occurring for two reasons, the first being the fact that Intel is ramping up for large quantities of .18mu manufacturing much more quickly than their initial estimates projected, and the second being that the AMD Athlon line of CPUs is more threatening to Intel's desktop business than first believed.

While the AMD Athlon CPU line has very large question marks surrounding it regarding yield rates, availability, and cost, Intel is still very conscious of the potential threat and has no intention of slowing down from implementing the fastest and most profitable technology possible in order to maintain an edge.

As September nears we'll be able to see how things are coming together for Intel's future product lines and we'll report on any and all news that we obtain.