‘Atom processor shortages are not too bad’

Intel’s energy-efficient Atom CPUs are said to have been supplied to OEMs. It was previously feared that high demand for the 45nm processors for use in ultraportables would lead to serious shortages.

The Atom has been ordered by many ultraportable manufacturers to be the beating heart of their new laptops. The energy-efficient 45nm processor is currently only available as a single-core processor with a clock speed of 1.6GHz and an L2 cache of 512KB. The first deliveries of this Atom 230 would have been delivered in the first week of May to OEMs who ordered the chip in March. The processor would therefore be with system builders in time to be built into subnotebooks and desktops that the manufacturers will present at the Computex in June.

According to Fudzilla, the demand for the processor formerly known as Diamondville is indeed high, but Intel would be able to supply enough Atoms to contain the shortages. It is not yet known when other Atom processors, such as the dual-core variant, will be available. The delivery of the CPUs for retail channels is also still pending. The Atom CPUs, when available, should give the mini-itx platform a boost.