The company has disclosed that up to 2 percent of its Coppermine chips — the Pentium III produced at 0.18-micron linewidths — have a bug that may interfere with the boot-up process.

A spokesman said the glitch has only been seen in a lab environment, but that it could occasionally prevent the machine from switching on when the start button is pressed, requiring users to hit the switch a second time.

He said there are no other known problems in the Coppermine, and that Intel will not pull the product off the shelves for such a minor issue. The cause of the problem has been determined, and it will be corrected when the chip goes through its next stepping, or tweak.

Intel is already having difficulty keeping up with demand for the Coppermine product, and the spokesman said that no customers had indicated they would curtail orders because of the bug.