Intel Corp. reportedly plans to improve its family of entry-level Intel Celeron D central processing units (CPUs) by the end of the Q2 2005, according to a report by a web-site. The new chips with improved specs are expected to be made using cost-effective 65nm process technology.

Mainboard makers familiar with plans of Intel Corp. revealed, according to DigiTimes web-site, that the world’s largest maker of chips plans to release at least two value processors made using 65nm process technology: Intel Celeron D 352 and Intel Celeron D 356 that will operate at 3.20GHz and 3.33GHz respectively, will incorporate 512KB of L2 cache and will feature 64-bit capability, like predecessors. Current Intel Celeron D chips integrate 256KB of L2 cache and operate using 533MHz processor system bus.

The new Intel Celeron D processors will be based on the core known as Cedar Mill, which is originally designed for Intel Pentium 4 processors running at various speeds and supporting 2MB of cache, 800MHz or 1066MHz processor system bus, EM64T, EDB and virtualization capabilities.

The main advantage of 65nm process technology is lower manufacturing cost, something which may allow Intel to reduce pricing on Intel Celeron D and Intel Pentium 4 processors more aggressively while pushing the speeds of the mentioned products up. Potentially, low-cost Intel Celeron D chips pose threat to sales of AMD Sempron processors.