As we have expected, today Intel announced its new Pentium 4 processor working at 2.4GHz. New CPUs will be manufactured with 0.13micron technology and will be based on Northwood core with 512KB L2 cache. The freshly announced CPUs will support 400MHz bus. However, a little bit more than a month need to pass before Intel announces the processors working at the same core clock frequency but supporting 533MHz bus/ The today’s newcomers will be selling at $562 in 1,000-unit quantities.

Pentium 4 2.4GHz could be regarded as a pretty ordinary event, if it were not for one thing. The new processors will be manufactured from 300mm wafers, while the previous Pentium 4 CPUs were made of 200mm wafers. As soon as everything sets up properly, the new wafers will allow Intel not only to reduce the production costs and increase the yields, but also to raise the frequency potential of the processors.

The company is reported to start making the Pentium 4 (Northwood) processor with the new core stepping made of lager wafers by the end of this month. Due to the redesign, the new CPUs will feature 10% smaller die size. Moreover, the new core stepping will let the processors work at higher clock frequencies up to 3GHz, which Intel is going to reach by the end of the year.