The world’s largest semiconductor maker Intel Corp. confirmed Friday night the delay of Intel Pentium 4 processor at 4.0GHz clock-speed. The company said it wanted to make sure it could deliver enough chips to its customers and had to adjust plans to meet this.

“We are reviewing key elements of our product development and manufacturing activities to ensure that we are meeting customer expectations for volume, quality and reliability,” Intel’s spokesman Radoslaw Ceplin told X-bit labs.

Intel originally planned to release its Pentium 4 processor at 4GHz clock-speed in the fourth quarter of 2004, which was a highly-advertised and discussed introduction. However, following the recent sequence of product delays the company now tells its partners that the chip clocked at 4.0GHz will only ship in the first quarter 2005.

“We want to ensure our customers have confidence in our ability to deliver to our commitments and promises. As a result, we are informing our customers that we have moved our 4.00GHz desktop product to the first quarter of 2005. We believe that by adjusting our schedule for 4.00GHz desktop products we can better meet our customer’s volume and high expectations for quality and reliability,” Mr. Ceplin added.

Earlier this year Intel had to postpone the release of its Pentium 4 processor 3.40GHz produced using 90nm process technology for more than a month. As a result, computer makers had to stick to older-generation Pentium 4 processor 3.40GHz manufactured using 130nm fabrication technology. Even now the top-of-the-range Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.60GHz) is not available widely everywhere, while the Xeon 3.60GHz chip is officially “available in limited quantities”.

In the past both Intel and AMD faced widespread condemnation for announcing products that are either shipped in very limited quantities, or are supplied after a while after the formal announcement. Both chipmakers were criticized for introducing central processing units like Pentium III 800MHz or Athlon XP 2800+ that began to ship in mass quantities only weeks after the announcements.

Intel’s spokesperson did not elaborate whether there are any more product delays to happen.