I’m so confused. Yesterday DigiTimes reported that a shortage in netbook parts including CPUs were driving up prices. Since one of the companies mentioned was Intel, I figured we might have another Atom shortage on our hands. But in a separate article, DigiTimes claims that Intel actually has a surplus of Atom chips thanks to cooling demand.

According to the second report, netbooks are facing increased competition from laptops using Intel’s new Consumer Ultra Low Voltage processors and similar CPUs from other companies. Intel is reportedly trying to offload some of its surplus stock in China and other developing markets.

But what it really comes down to is that all of these reports siting “industry sources” should be taken with a grain of salt. Because different sources hear different things. Until Intel comes right out and says it’s raising or lowering prices of its processors, introducing a new chip, or phasing out an oold one, we won’t really know for sure what’s going on. One thing is clear though. The netbook market today is still dominated by machines using Intel Atom processors.

Update: Asus weighs in, saying that its chip supply “is on target.”

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3 replies on “Wait, are Intel Atom CPUs in short supply or is there a surplus?”

  1. I’d also like to see some success with Via Nano, or even ARM, (since AMD apparently is prejudiced against making any money from netbooks) so those @sshats at Intel know what we think about them arbitrarily refusing to advance the Atom platform and the industry’s (and no doubt Microsoft’s) efforts to convince us we should be paying a $100’s more than the prices we’ve enjoyed the past year for no other reason than to pad their margins. Its a house of cards and its going to collapse eventually. Good enough hardware is becoming a cheap commodity, and the software to run it will either be cheap or free — that’s all there is to it, get used to it Wintel.

  2. I guess if you try to dump most of your inventory into China you end up with a shortage elsewhere. Intel is just doing their best to justify raising prices.

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