The Shannon Knows Compaq newsletter from industry analyst Terry Shannon believes that Intel Computer Corp executives are insisting that the latest deadline for the out of its 64-bit Merced chip is met. May is the latest target date for tape out, but this time heads will roll if it isn’t met, says Shannon. If it is, Merced boxes could be ready to ship to Microsoft by the end of June. Intel’s schedule, according to Shannon, is that the first samples will emerge around two weeks after tape-out, with power-on a week later and the first boot up of Win64 a week after that, which seems somewhat optimistic.
