Intel may have canned Tejas project

PERSISTENT RUMOURS from people close to Intel engineers are suggesting that the chip firm may have canned its work on Tejas, the chip that is supposed to follow Prescott.

These sources tell the INQUIRER, and as yet this is unconfirmed, that the project has been shelved before tape out, and layout resources are no longer working on it.

The tape out was supposed to have happened round about now.

The speculation on the semiconductor street is that Intel is frantically attempting to take the Pentium M to the next shrink and move it as rapidly as possible into the pole position.

And the legendary skunk works in Oregon, the same sources suggest, have already designed a 64-bit wide P6/Pentium M core, perhaps dropping the legacy stuff and including 32-bit compatability.

Which would strongly suggest, as we've reported before, that Intel might well bring its Conroe and its Merom projects closer to reality than first anticipated.