Analyst: Barcelona Delayed Until October

Analysts are suggesting that AMD may be forced to delay its Barcelona multi-core chip, a move that could set the company back both financially and strategically.

Originally, the new multi-core processor was scheduled for a July debut, however now AMD is pushing its release to October. While Citigroup analyst Glen Yeung initially reported the news, others are agreeing with his assessment.

Yeung said the lack of Barcelona could push the company to lose about $2.59 per share, 11 cents more than Citibank expected the company to lose previously. This comes on the heels of a $611 million loss for the quarter ending in April.

When approached about the delay, AMD denied any. It pointed to recent demonstrations of the chip at Computex, and said many were inferring a delay from an announcement on quad-core Cray systems, which use AMD's Budapest chips.

Those chips are due in the fall, not Barcelona they say. However, not many are buying it. Such a delay essentially erases any advantage AMD now has over Intel, as the latter will be able to ship its Penryn processors by that time period.

Penryn offers similar performance to Barcelona.