In spite of Intel’s claims about the code-named Sonoma platform plans on-track, various media in on the second round with reports about possible delay of the new platform’s introduction.

Revenue Shipments in 2004, Introduction in 2005

PCWorld web-site reported citing sources at Intel that the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker would postpone the formal industry introduction of the future Centrino incarnation till the first quarter of next year. The code-named Alviso chipset – the base on Intel Sonoma – will ship for revenue this year, meaning unit shipments will be sent to PC makers, at which time Intel will be bringing in revenue from Sonoma. Unit shipments to PC makers typically occur about six weeks before the products are available using the chip set, the web-site notes.

“Silicon for the chip set did not meet Intel’s production standards,” the source told PCWorld explaining the reason for the shift in plans.

In mid-June a web-site from Asia said Intel was likely to push the release date of the Sonoma and Alviso products forward to the first quarter of 2005 from the fourth quarter of 2004, on which an Intel spokesperson said that Sonoma was still “on track for delivery in the second half of this year”.

Representatives for Intel did not comment on the news-story.

Postpones Chase Intel?

It is not the first time for Intel to delay releases of its mobile products. Intel’s current flagship mobile offering – the Pentium M “Dothan” – was once planned to launch in mid-2003, but then delayed to Fall 2003, after which faced push into Q1 2004. Finally, the chip was released commercially in the second quarter of 2004.

The original Pentium M processor code-named Banias also faced a setback. The chip began to ship for revenue in late 2002, but was only officially introduced in March 2003.

Sonoma – Consumer-Oriented Mobile Platform

Intel’s code-named Alviso core-logic is expected to support dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM memory to improve performance tangibly compared to current mobile platforms. Additionally, certain incarnations of the Alviso are likely to feature 533MHz processor system bus to partner with the upcoming Intel Pentium M “Dothan” processors that will get PSB boost late this year.

Intel said that the Sonoma platform primarily targets the consumers, while the initial Centrino incarnation addressed the needs of business and enterprise users, who are not much interested in loads of multimedia capabilities, but are more concentrated on battery life and wireless LAN capability.

In order to offer more advantages to consumers, Intel said its next-generation mobile core-logic – Alviso – will enable PCI Express interconnections in notebooks, allowing installation of powerful mobile graphics add-in cards, such as ATI AXIOM and NVIDIA MXM, designed specifically for this bus.

In order to complete the transition of the mobile technologies to the most-advanced level, Intel is also projected to add support for Serial ATA-150 to the upcoming ICH6-M and bring advanced Azalia audio to its “Sonoma” Mobile Internet PC 2004 Platform enabling Dolby-Digital 7.1 and high-quality audio on such kind of PCs. Additionally, expect the new platform to support NEWCARD, as well as new and even more effective power-saving (EBL’04) and security features, such as biometrics.

As a part of its “Sonoma” Mobile Internet PC 2004 Platform (Centrino 2004), Intel also plans to launch an 802.11g/Bluetooth solution with improved Bluetooth audio quality while using WLAN. The company’s longer-term plans are to enable 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth and GSM-GPRS co-existence on the same mobile platform.