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Sources close to Intel have confirmed earlier reports that Intel’s Montevina notebook platform, referred to as Centrino 2, will see a substantial delay. Montevina will not make it to Computex next week and will miss its originally planned debut date later in June. Intel has decided to delay Centrino 2, providing AMD with an opportunity to pitch its Puma platform and Turion Ultra processor. Intel’s engineering and manufacturing engine has been running flawlessly over the past two years, taking away AMD’s room to breathe. But, of course, mistakes are bound to happen at some point and Intel is now being confronted with an issue serious enough to officially delay the launch of Centrino 2. Analyst Doug Freedman claimed that the company had a “mis-step in the completion of FCC certification” for the next-generation Centrino processor with support for the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. F

reedman said that 802.11n support may see a slower ramp as Montevina can only be shipped with support 802.11 a/b/g for now. Freedman also noted that Intel faces problems with its integrated graphics chipset, which is causing failures in OEM notebooks. “We believe the potential impact is to lower-end systems as higher-end notebooks are designed with discrete graphics cards. In fact, the impact on [Intel] is a possible improvement in mix within the chipset business; however, it is offset by the yield loss related to the functional issues.” Our sources at Intel told us that Centrino 2 is no scheduled for a July 14 launch with “some chipsets”. A “couple of weeks later” the company will be shipping the full line of chipsets, as the company needs “a few extra days” for tasks such as antenna testing.