HP: Intel chip flaw to delay products

Hewlett-Packard said that the availability of certain

SANFRANCISCO: Hewlett-Packard said that the availability of certain machines will be "impacted" by a chip- design flaw disclosed by Intel Corp. and that it will delay a product presentation scheduled for next week in San Francisco.

"We are postponing the business notebooks briefing on Feb. 10 as the availability of HP products will be impacted" by the flaw outlined by Intel, according to a statement sent to reporters yesterday by Edelman Public Relations Worldwide.

Intel, the world's largest maker of semiconductors, said on Jan. 31 that it will incur $1 billion in missed sales and higher cost to fix the design flaw. The error also is affecting personal-computer makers including Samsung Electronics Co., which said it will offer refunds on some PCs, and NEC Corp., which said it may push back the release of four new models.

The fault is in a support chip, or chipset, for Intel's latest processor model called Sandy Bridge, unveiled this month in a bid to improve PC graphics and repel a challenge by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

HP, the world's largest maker of PCs, sells many computers that use chips other than Sandy Bridge, said Marlene Somsak, a spokeswoman for Palo Alto, California based HP.

"HP has the broadest lineup of PCs in the industry and there are many HP choices using a wide variety of processors," Somsak said yesterday.

HP climbed 83 cents to $46.52 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. It declined 18 percent last year.

XPS, Alienware

Dell Inc. spokesman David Frink said in an e-mailed statement that the Intel flaw affects four Dell products sold under its XPS, Vostro, and Alienware brands.

"We're committed to addressing this with customers who have already purchased one of the four products, will work directly with them and provide further detail as it becomes available," Frink said.

Computers that use the potentially faulty chips have been sold since Jan. 9, and Intel said it's corrected the flaw and begun manufacturing a new version of the chip that will resolve the issue.

Intel said it expects to begin delivering an updated version of Sandy Bridge's chipset, called Cougar Point, to customers in late February and be at full production in April. The company has shipped about 8 million of the Cougar Point chips to customers that will have to be replaced, Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said on a Jan. 31 conference call.

HP had planned to discuss the notebook computers, aimed at business customers, with journalists next week, before officially unveiling them to the public on Feb. 23, according to an earlier e-mail from Edelman.