CHIPZILLA can't meet initial demand for its low-power Atom microprocessor, says Taiwan trade paper Apply Daily.

Reportedly Intel will fill less than 40 per cent of orders for Atom chips in the next month, and this is expected to delay shipments of ultramobile notebooks in the short term. Affected vendors are said to include Acer, Dell, Gigabyte and MSI.

The shortage of Atom CPUs may open a brief window of opportunity for both Asustek and HP, which have fielded ultramobile notebooks that don't use the Atom processor. The Asus Eee PC 900 runs on a mobile Celeron chip and the HP Mini-Note uses a Via CPU.

The cause of Intel's Atom shortfall is unknown. The company has declined to comment except to say that it is increasing production of its 45nm scale products and anticipates being able to meet Atom chip demand in the future. µ

L'Inq
Electronista