Intel Pentium 4 processor at 2.53GHz that brought a major performance victory for Intel in the battle with AMD Athlon XP 2200+ processor last year is being discontinued. Additionally, Intel will cease the supply of the Pentium 4 2.26GHz, 2.50GHz and Intel Celeron Processor 2.10GHz.

All the mentioned microprocessors are made using 0.13 micron manufacturing technology and are based on the Northwood and Northwood-128 core. The discontinuance of such products means that Intel plans to continue its rapid performance improvement next year, possibly with 90nm chips.

The last date to order the processors being discontinued is the 17^th of January, 2004. The last Product Discontinuance Shipment Date is September 13, 2004 for Celeron 2.10GHz tray processor; 14 March, 2005 for the determined versions of tray Pentium 4 chips and April 17, 2004 for boxed Pentium 4 2.26GHz, 2.50GHz, 2.53GHz and Intel Celeron Processor 2.10GHz.

It is interesting to note that Intel still supplies Pentium 4 2.40GHz processors and even has not announced its product discontinuance program for the chips.