Sony's viewpoints on the Intel® Grantsdale™ chipset problem

Sony received the following official report and explanation from Intel referring to their chipset module problem in the afternoon of July 1st, Japan time, as recently reported by some media.

1. On June 24th, 2004, Intel identified that there was a possible problem on a controlling device on the "Grantsdale" (915/925) chipset module.
2. The problem symptoms are "initial boot error" and "system hang-up". However, it does not affect the math processing unit ("MPU") itself.
3. The root cause of this defect is Intel's chipset manufacturing process not the chipset design itself.

Before Intel's official explanation, Sony detected the symptoms mentioned above through its internal quality processes and Sony has worked diligently to identify and eliminate defective mother boards. Concurrently, Sony has performed a root cause analysis of this problem and has reported our findings to Intel.

After public reporting of this problem by some media, Sony has re-confirmed with Intel that our screening process should be sufficient to detect this defect.

Sony will continue to monitor this situation and will work with Intel and its other suppliers to mitigate any impact that this defect could have on its customers.