Intel Finds Chipset Flaw in P67 – Stops Shipments of Motherboards
Intel Corp cut its first-quarter revenue forecast by $300 million on Monday because of costs associated with correcting a design flaw it discovered in one of its chips. Intel said it had stopped shipments of the chip, which is used in PCs with the company’s latest generation Sandy Bridge processors, and had implemented a fix. It estimated the total cost to repair and replace the chip at about $700 million. The issue on the new chipset means that the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives. The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel’s latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Updated chipsets are expected in late February, with full volume recovery in April.
The world’s largest chipmaker, whose shares were down 1.6 percent after the announcement, said it did not expect the problem to have a material effect on full-year revenue. It will begin delivering an updated version of the chip to customers in late February. But since the flaw affected some of the chipset units shipped in the fourth quarter, Intel plans to take a charge that will reduce its gross margin by roughly 4 percentage points for that period. It will also take a first-quarter charge that will cut its gross margin by 2 percentage points.
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