Intel processors manufactured with 0.18micron technology keep sinking into oblivion extremely rapidly. This time, Intel officially announced the beginning of discontinuance program for its Xeon CPUs on Foster core (Socket603) working at 1.5GHz, 1.7GHz and 2GHz (1.4GHz hasn’t been shipping any more for a long time already). In other words, this processor family will no longer exist. Instead, Intel will be offering Xeon CPUs on 0.13micron Prestonia core working at 1.8GHz, 2GHz and 2.2GHz. These processors started shipping little by little in the first half of January already (see this news story). Their official launch is scheduled for the IDF, which is to start on February 25.

Returning back to Xeon (Foster). The last order for Tray versions of these CPUs can be accepted on August 16, 2002 at the latest, and the last shipment will be made on February 18, not any later. As for the boxed versions, they stopped shipping on February 13.