Intel will cancel Pentium in 1998

Intel will cease production of its stalwart Pentium microprocessor by the end of 1998, company officials confirmed this week. The Pentium was originally introduced in 1994 in 60 and 66 MHz versions. In 1997, it wasupgraded with multimedia extensions called MMX. The latest versions of thechip now run at 233 and 266 MHz. While the Pentium is, by far, Intel'smost successful product, the company's image was briefly marred a fewyears ago when the news of an FPU bug in 60, 66, and 90 MHz Pentiums surfaced. After an embarrassing public turnaround, the company finally agreed to replace all existing Pentiums at no cost.

The original successor to the Pentium, the Pentium Pro, held a briefposition at the top of Intel's CPU scheme until the introduction of thePentium II. The Pentium II now forms the backbone of Intel's near-termstrategy going forward, with a new "Slot 2" design expected by this summer.Slot 2 Pentium II designs will effectively signal the end of the PentiumPro as well. Intel will be releasing low-end Pentium II CPUs this year aswell, to replace the original Pentium design