Sources told TG Daily that Intel will begin shipments of its Woodcrest server and workstation processor at the end of June of this year. Woodcrest is the server derivate of the firm's next-generation micro architecture, which has the mobile processor Merom at its core.

Woodcrest will succeed "Dempsey," a 65 nm chip based on the Pentium D 900. Dempsey will be launched in as Xeon 50xx series the second quarter of this year and followed by Woodcrest, which will be named Xeon 51xx, in the third or early fourth quarter. The new processor is expected to make its debut with six version, ranging from 1.6 GHz to 3.0 GHz and support for FSB1066 on the low-end and FSB1333 in the mainstream and higher-end models. Pricing of the dual-core chip will begin at $209 for the 1.6 GHz Xeon 5110 and top-out at $851 for the 3.0 GHz 5160 model.

Woodcrest is expected to be introduced in the same time frame as the desktop version, which is currently code-named "Conroe" and is likely to be called the Core Duo E-series when launched. The mobile processor "Merom" will follow with a slight delay in Q4 of this year.

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