Just in case you think Intel has problems with Prescott because of 478-pin packaging and everything will go a lot better after the firm introduces its new type of processors in Land Grid Array package, you are probably wrong, as the company is not going to flood the market with LGA775 chips in the first half of the year, according to estimations.

Apparently, LGA775 chips will account for a little bit more than for one quarter of all Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors shipped this year, a not very large figure, isn’t it?

In fact, Intel’s product blend will be pretty mixed this year. For instance, there will be Pentium 4 Prescott processors with 800MHz and 533MHz PSB available for both Socket 478 and LGA775 platforms. Prescott Celeron processors will also be offered in 478-pin and 775-pin versions for 533MHz bus and 478-in Celeron chips for 400MHz PSB.

Northwood-based products, however, will not be offered for LGA775, therefore, all chips for Socket T will be made using 90nm strained silicon process technology only.

Pentium 4 Prescott processors with 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus will be pretty rare offerings: depending on the quarter, such chips will account for around 5% to 15% of Intel’s desktop CPUs. Pentium 4 Northwood microprocessors with 533MHz QPB will also leave the market rather rapidly by dropping from 17% of Intel’s desktop SKUs in Q1 to 1% in Q3. Essentially it all means that more than 90% of Pentium 4 products will have 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus and Hyper-Threading technology this Summer.

According to certain estimations, there will be 8%, 32% and 45% of LGA775 processors in Intel’s desktop lineup in Q2, Q3 and Q4 respectively.

To sum up, the Intel’s Socket T infrastructure will spread its wings very massively only next year. But this year the majority of chips will be made in conventional 478-pin packaging. Given that no company would produce CPUs in an ineffective way, I believe that chips in current packaging yield and scale pretty well, while LGA775 is a real benefit for CPUs starting from 3.80GHz.