If you remember, last September (see this news story) VIA promised to start shipping its new processor on Nehemia core in the end of 2001 or in the beginning of 2002. However, the Q2 has already started and the CPUs are still not there.

The Inquirer suggested a very interesting and quite reasonable explanation of this fact, pretty upsetting for VIA. According to some unofficial info the guys managed to receive, VIA is going to design this processor for… Socket478!, i.e. they will use Pentium4 system bus! As you remember, they used to intend this CPU for the same Socket370 at first that is why the delay with the shipments is quite understandable now.

Also we can understand VIA’s potential desire to replace the processor socket: very soon Intel will launch new Celeron CPUs on 0.18micron Willmaette-128 core that is why the old Socket370 will little by little leave the value market segment. By the way, the working frequencies of Nehemiah processor should lie between 1.0GHz and 1.5GHz, which could let the solution compete with Intel Celeron (Willamette-128) even in terms of performance (though I don’t believe it would be possible).

I prefer to refrain from commenting on the fact how mad Intel will be at VIA for starting to produce Socket478 processors. No wonder that the new lawsuits will follow (if VIA ever does it, of course). However, please take note that this info can be regarded as "unconfirmed rumors" and has every chance to appear a false report.