July 30, 2004 – Another week, another chip setback for Intel. The company reportedly has told customers that it won’t be shipping the new 4GHz Pentium 4 chips until 1Q05, in order to “better meet our customers’ volume requirements,” stated an Intel spokesperson, quoted by the Associated Press. No other reason for the delay was provided.

This isn’t the first dispute over the Pentium 4 line — in May Intel claimed it was shifting attention from its fourth-generation 90nm-based “Tejas” and “Jayhawk” Pentium 4 chips, as well as a new Xeon processor, to focus on the creation of “dual-core” chips, with a projected ship date in 2005.

The Pentium 4 problems are the latest setback for Intel, which has had several issues with chips so far this year. The company delayed the January release of its Pentium M notebook chips due to design challenges, and earlier this summer Intel also announced it had discovered some manufacturing flaws in its “Grantsdale” chipset, which it said it caught early in the supply chain, a gaffe that ended up taking $38 million off the books in 2Q04. And last week, Intel announced that it would delay the anticipated launch of its “Alviso” chipset for notebook computers until 1Q05 due to “unspecified technical and marketing issues.”

All of these slipups reportedly angered CEO Craig Barrett enough to the point of sending a letter to all company employees, calling for them to “focus intensely on actions and attitudes that will continue Intel’s strong track record,” according to a Reuters report.