Yesterday, the same day that microprocessor maker Intel planned to introduce a new version of its 3GHz Pentium 4 chips, the company instead recalled the processors because of a small bug that seems to affect only a small portion of the manufactured chips. The 3GHz Pentium 4 chip supports systems with 800MHz buses and Double Data Rate (DDR) memory that runs at 400MHz. PC makers such as Dell and Gateway were primed and ready yesterday to deliver systems based on the new processor and chipset and had sent out press releases before news of the recall came. And although the public-relations flap from this problem is unlikely to be as serious as two of Intel's other infamous episodes--the Pentium 90 arithmetic error and the process ID flag problem--this week's recall is nonetheless embarrassing.
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