Apple may be receiving mass shipments of Intel's Core 2 Duo 'Merom' processor in early September, according to one report. The company currently uses Intel's Core Duo 'Yonah' processors in its Intel-based Macs, and the new Merom processor is the mobile successor of Yonah. Boasting a 4MB L2 cache, 667MHz FSB, 64-bit processing, and clock speeds up to 2.33GHz, the new chip is a vast improvement over the original Core. A small number of PC makers have already begun to announce their Core 2 Duo 'Conroe' offerings; however Apple wants to be among the first to announce its lineup based on Merom, according to AppleInsider.

Since introducing Intel-based Macs, Apple's retail notebook sales had increased to 12 percent as of July 1st, doubling its 6 percent reported in January of 2006. Manufacturers have already received the new Merom sample chips, enabling to design new systems which incorporate the new processor.