With Intel Monday disclosing a design flaw in its Sandy Bridge chipset, analysts are of the opinion that the defect may lead to a delay in Apple's expected upgrade of its prime notebook line, MacBook Pro.

Acknowledging the design blunder in the Sandy Bridge chipset, Intel had revealed on Monday that the flaw chiefly affected the Serial-ATA (SATA) controller; thereby resulting in poor hard drive performance or even making the drive indiscernible by the system.

In addition, Intel said that the shipments of the flawed chipsets have been stalled; and that the chipsets were been retooled. With the shipping of the fixed version of the chipset to start late next month; the company "expects full volume recovery in April."

According to the analysts, the Sandy Bridge design error will likely have an impact Apple's next MacBook Pro refresh; more so as it is being speculated that the notebook line will apparently be equipped with new processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture.

With Apple earlier assumed to be set to launch the MacBook Pros in March or probably April, Gartner VP Martin Reynolds said that the Intel chipset law "could mean a delay of two to three weeks" for the launch MacBook Pro refresh.

However, Dan Olds, a senior analyst with Portland, Ore.-based Gabriel Consulting Group, disagreed with Reynolds, saying: "I haven't heard any chatter from the major players [about upcoming notebooks that use the chipsets], like Dell, for example."