Intel Corp (INTC)

[burn2learn]

Does this suggest they have no idea if they can make one at all? What would provide confidence of hitting 4 GHz in Q1 05, while knowing they cannot make it in Q404? In other words, is this expressing hope that a new not-yet-evaluated stepping will solve the problem?

Typically there are transistor revs and process developments planned to get to a certain speed grade. These are usually planned to intercept a stepping.

1. speed increase from process + stepping = total goal

The process / transistors revs don't always go per plan and could be that the roadmap items to get to a goal speed improvement did not get expected results or the yield is impacted but they got the results. Either can be mitigated through further experiments or roadmap changes

or the stepping is not ontime, or both of the above