14 DAY TRIAL // Even with all the economic turmoil over the past two years, Intel still managed to launch a fair number of new central processing units, not just high-end parts but also new mainstream and entry-level chips. This, naturally, made previous-generation chips obsolete. Now, the popularity growth of the Atom N series and the Pentium line appear to have had a not so common side effect. According to reports, Intel plans to stop making Celeron processors altogether, starting next year.
'Starting next year' may not exactly be the best formulation, because Intel actually plans to already start reducing production of such CPUs. At least, this is what Digitimes claims Intel told its manufacturing partners.
The models currently on sale are the dual-core Celeron P4500 (US$86), T3100 (US$80) and 900 (US$70) and T3300 (US$86). These are found in traditional notebooks. There are also the dual-core Celeron SU2300 (US$134) and single-core 743 (US$107) that power ultrathin laptops.
All of these chips will be completely phased out by next year. On the other hand, and strangely enough, several Celerons are still to be introduced, by September. They bear the names of U3400 (US$134), P4600 (US$86) and T3500 (US$80). By no longer supplying the PC segment with this line of CPUs, Intel seeks to avoid situation where product lines compete for demand, according to Digitmes' sources.
The lines that would compete for demand are the Pentium and Atom N series. These parts will go on existing and cover, more or less, the same price and performance ranges. For instance, the Atom N550 dual-core costs $86, the same as the Celeron P4600. What this means is that the dual-core Atoms will not longer be restricted to just netbooks and may, in fact, start to show up in certain entry-level notebooks as well. An exact date for when the phase-out will occur has not been given.