Manufacturing changes look set to improve performance

The Prescott series of Pentium 4 chips are tuned to do a better job of handling multimedia as well as a range of scientific and engineering applications.

Intel has also given the chip more memory and made changes to the way it handles instructions in a bid to improve performance.

The tech giant has also modified the way that it makes the new chips to help it take performance to new heights.

Industrial action

PC makers are expected to start selling machines with the new chips inside almost immediately.

The manufacturing changes Intel has introduced with Prescott include stressing the basic silicon the chip is made of to make it into a better conductor.

Intel has also used novel materials in the Prescott chips to stop current leaking between components and ensure that separate components switch smoothly between states.

Prescott chips have components only 90 nanometres wide

The Prescott chips are also among the first to have components only 90 nanometres wide. By contrast components on the Northwood Pentium 4 chips were 130 nanometres wide which allows the new range to cram more into a smaller space.

Intel has used this ability to squeeze more components on the basic chip to double the amount of memory onboard the Pentium 4.

Alongside these manufacturing changes go alterations to the way that the chip handles the instructions it processes. Intel has also created a range of new instructions written specifically for the multimedia data that many PCs are increasingly being used to edit or show.

The Prescott chips supersede the previous top-of-the-line Pentium 4 range of processors that were collectively called Northwood.

The first Prescott chips run at speeds of 2.8 GHz and 3.2 GHz and a faster 3.4GHZ version is expected soon.

But until widely used programs and applications are re-written to take advantage of these instructions some web-based hardware review sites say that top-of-the-line Northwood chips will be as fast, or faster, than the new range.

However, by the end of the year the Prescott chips will be running at 4GHz and much faster than earlier Pentium 4 processors.