Intel has halted shipments of its recently released Sandy Bridge Core Processors, after indentifying a design flaw which could lead to Serial-ATA (SATA) port failure over time.
The flaw, in the Cougar Point 6-series range of core-logic chipsets, which support the Sandy Bridge processor, will mean a recall of systems that have already shipped to end users, and a delay in shipment of new, rectified chipsets, until later this month, with full volume not expected to recover until April.
Intel says it will reduce revenue by $300m in the first quarter of 2011, and the total cost to repair and replace affected materials and systems in the market is estimated to be $700 million.
Hundreds of new models of PC that were expected to use the Sandy Bridge processors, will now be delayed.
Intel says that it had only been shipping the flawed chipsets since 9th January, and that "relatively few" customers. Systems running quad-core Core i5 or Core i7 processors will be affected.