Intel Corporation today notified its customers about Intel Pentium 4 CPUs packaging change. The design of the new chip package will resemble the design of the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processors; analysts believe the move to be aimed on unification of packaging process.

Intel Pentium 4 processors with 512KB L2 cache on 0.13 micron process with 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus will be shipped in two equivalent packages. The following describe the two equivalent packages:

• Both packages contain the same die (D-1 stepping);
• Both packages implement the same CPUID (0F29h);
• The electrical and thermal specifications are equivalent for both packages.

The new packaging for the Pentium 4 processors will have 8 layer substrate compared to 6 layer substrate of the original mPGA478 package, will contain 30 caps/30 pads decoupling on the lower side of the chip versus 12 caps/20 pads decoupling of the original Pentium 4 CPU with 800MHz PSB. In addition, the new chips will sport 3.75mm nominal Z height, up 0.29mm from the initial Z height of the Intel Pentium 4 “Northwood” processor.

The new packaging seems to be equal to the packaging of the yet-to-be announced Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor you can glance at over this article at X-bit labs. The change of the CPU layout was probably done in an attempt to unify the process of producing different CPUs as well as making the mPGA substrates.