ZDNet heeft een artikel gepost met details over de Intel Willamette, de opvolger van de inmiddels 5 jaar oude P6 core. Volgens ZDNet zal de Willamette eind dit jaar tegen een kloksnelheid van 1GHz geïntroduceerd worden. De processor wordt op een 0,18micron procédé gefabriceerd en krijgt een verse set SIMD instructies. Tegelijkertijd zal de Tehema chipset zijn debuut maken, deze chipset heeft Rambus support en een busspeed 'sneller dan 133MHz':
Intel officials have been mum on other details, but the chip should be significant to consumers because it will replace Intel's Pentium III and bring 1GHz-plus speeds to the desktop by the end of the year. Intel's Pentium III chip will top out at about 1GHz in the second half of the year.Willamette, however, is a brand-new 32-bit processor design, Intel's first such new design since introducing the Pentium Pro processor in late 1995. This core, referred to as the P6 core by Intel, has been the basis of every processor since then, including the Pentium III.
[...] The chip, in addition, is expected to include Willamette Processor New Instructions -- a new set of single instruction, multiple data or SIMD multimedia instructions. These instructions are used to help enhance the processing of certain multimedia data, such as video.
Willamette will be supported by a new chip set, code-named Tehama, which will support Rambus Direct RAM with a high-performance bus, which will be faster than the current 133MHz bus used with Pentium III, sources said. The bus acts like a pipeline for moving data between the processor and system components, such as memory. The faster it is, the more data a processor can move, increasing overall system performance.