The revised introduction date of the so-called Brookdale chipset also could see Intel drop plans for a single-data-rate version of the device, according to sources at last week's DDR Summit II here.

Intel declined to discuss unannounced products in detail, although a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara, Calif., company reiterated an earlier statement that it will release the DDR version of the Brookdale in the first quarter of next year. She added that the launch date could be adjusted "depending on market conditions," although she declined to elaborate.

Intel is facing competition from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., which this quarter will start volume shipments of its top-end Athlon processors supported by various DDR chipsets. Raymond Lee, an AMD vice president and director of its Far East Ltd. operation in Hong Kong, said DDR will allow the 1.2-GHz Athlon chips to increase performance 15% to 20% over equivalent processors using chipsets equipped with a PC133 interface.

Intel, which initially spurned DDR in favor of Direct Rambus DRAM for the Pentium 4, reversed course last fall when it announced the DDR-capable Brookdale. However, analysts said the original launch date left a competitive vacuum in the desktop-PC market that would have given AMD nearly a year to build market share.

That gap appears to be narrowing. In addition to its accelerated launch schedule, Intel could benefit slightly from a delay in the availability of DDR desktop PCs using AMD's Athlon. The company has reported problems associated with getting the chipsets, modules, and motherboards working together at higher speeds.

The production hiccup may not slow the market's ramp for long, however, as industry executives at the DDR Summit II indicated that PC266 DDR SDRAM and PC2100 memory modules will begin shipping in volume this quarter.

Brookdale's purported October launch is the clearest sign yet that changes have been made to a key clause in Intel's contract with IP design company Rambus Inc., Mountain View, Calif.

Though neither would comment on the issue, the clause as originally written prohibited Intel from supporting any desktop-PC memory interface in the Pentium 4 other than Direct RDRAM prior to 2003.

Intel has been developing its own DDR-equipped chipsets for server platforms -- an area that was not subject to restrictions -- which sources here said may have enabled the company to rein in the Brookdale debut date.

The Brookdale launch is expected to coincide with the debut of a mainstream-PC Pentium 4, code-named Northwood, a scaled-down version of the Willamette with a single memory channel.

In the interim, Intel is trying to position the high-end Willamette and Direct RDRAM in the mainstream space to compete against AMD. To do this, the company has cut Pentium 4 prices, offered a variety of discounts, sweetened its "Intel Inside" co-op advertising incentives, and begun reselling Pentium 4 chips that failed to reach 1.4-GHz speeds at a lower, 1.3-GHz clock speed.

While DDR SDRAM will now factor into Intel's road map, the company is still showing signs of a firm commitment to Direct RDRAM. Sources here said Intel is keeping its options open by adapting the Willamette's Rambus chipset to a new Tehama-E chipset for the Northwood processor, allowing customers the ability to choose either memory interface.