Even though Intel shipped engineering samples of upcoming Prescott processor to its partners very recently, the company is nearly sure it will be able to rapidly transfer a significant part of its manufacturing facilities to 90nm technology using its very own Copy Exactly transfer method. As revealed by Japanese PC Watch, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker will manufacture Celeron processors using 90nm fabrication process next year. It means, 90nm implementation will be quite aggressive, just like Intel said originally.

A year from now Intel will introduce new Celeron processors for desktop computers with new bus and enlarged L2 cache. The chips will be manufactured already using 90nm technology and will certainly derive from the highly-anticipated Prescott core. By that time higher-end Prescott processors will get their 1066MHz Quad Pumped Bus and Celeron’s 533MHz PSB will certainly not be very impressive. Historically, Intel Celeron processors for desktop PCs always had ½ or ¼ of L2 cache featured by mainstream Pentium CPUs, the next-generation Celerons will not be an exception and following latest Intel’s traditions, the Celeron chips will provide 256KB of L2 in contrast to huge 1MB L2 cache of the Prescott CPUs. At this point the semiconductor giant considers whether to implement the Hyper-Threading technology and other advantages of Prescott CPUs into the upcoming value microprocessors or not. It worth to say that AMD is also preparing Athlon 64 processors for mainstream and value market segments with 256KB of L2 cache.

Currently there is no information about the platform for the new Celeron microprocessor manufactured using 90nm technology. At first, the new processors may be made for conventional Socket 478, however, in case Intel decides to rapidly move its PCI Express-supporting platform into the market, there will be new Celeron processors for Socket T as well. It is too early to speak about frequencies of upcoming Celeron chips because typically this figure depends on various factors including demand and AMD’s offerings.

Additionally, next year Intel will start cutting down Mobile Celeron CPUs based on NetBurst architecture. It is revealed that the next-generation Mobile Celeron processors will be based on Pentium M architecture and made using 90nm technology. Certainly, they will derive from the code-named Dothan chip with L2, but like it is meant for Celeron CPUs, those will boast with “only” 1MB of L2, half of Dothan’s L2. Obviously, Low Voltage and Ultra Low Voltage Celeron processors powered by Pentium M architecture will emerge as well. The processors will utilize 400MHz Quad Pumped Bus and their core-speeds should start from 1.40 or 1.50GHz in mid-2004.