The
Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII, also stylized as Pentium
!!! ) brand refers to
Intel's
32-bit x86 desktop and mobile
microprocessors based on the sixth-generation
P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 26, 1999. The brand's initial processors were very similar to the earlier
Pentium II-branded microprocessors. The most notable differences were the addition of the
SSE instruction set (to accelerate
floating point and parallel calculations), and the introduction of a controversial serial number embedded in the chip during the manufacturing process.