| June 19, 1998 |
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By Dan Goodin
June 18, 1998
C/Net
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In a two-punch counterattack on
Intergraph, Intel has accused the workstation maker of
infringing seven of the chip giant's patents and argued
that an existing cross-licensing deal gives it
"absolute immunity" against Intergraph's
initial patent claims. As part of a portfolio that
numbers more than 2,500, Intel's patents cover a broad
range of technologies for high-end computing, including
graphics, disk access, and memory. In addition to the
patent infringement claims, the countersuit by Intel
alleges misappropriation of trade secrets, intentional
interference with business relations, and breach of
contract.
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June 18, 1998
The Register
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Intel has found itself between a rock
and a hard place after reports that IBM is about to
license Alpha technology from Compaq. That will put the
future of Merced in further jeopardy, following Compaq's
decision, reported here last week, to push its volume
servers using the Alpha platform.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had earlier this
year forced Intel to allow third parties to license Alpha
technology after Intel came to an arrangement with
Digital at the end of last year. Under that deal, Intel
was forced to license that technology to AMD and others.
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By Edward F. Moltzen
June 18, 1998
Computer Reseller News
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Intel's executive vice president Paul
Otellini showed off the chip giant's new Xeon dual server
processor in a PC Expo keynote session in New York. "Intel
is investing tremendously ahead of the curve to support
[improvements in] servers," said Otellini, executive
vice president architecture business group for Intel.
"With Xeon, we're going to set new records in price
performance." Xeon is slated to ship on June 29.
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By Margaret Kane
June 18, 1998
ZD Net News
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Executive Vice President Paul Otellini
took attendees at PC Expo through a tour of the company's
processor line, in a keynote speech that focused more on
how technology is being used than on where it is going. But
while Otellini mostly focused on existing offerings from
Intel he did shed some light on new technology coming in
the next few months.
In an interview after the keynote with PCWeek Radio,
Otellini said that consumers can expect to see faster
versions of Intel's low-end Celeron processor by the
Christmas selling season. The newer version will feature
a level 2 cache, he said.
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By Michael Kanellos
June 18, 1998
C/Net
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To further cut manufacturing costs on
its low-end chips while beginning its move into
information appliances, Intel will release a version of
the Celeron processor next year that abandons the
"Slot 1" architecture that has become
synonymous with the Pentium II. The new chip package,
currently called "370 Pin Socket," will eschew
the long, steel, grooved connector of Slot 1 Pentium II
chips. Instead, the new processors will be mounted into
circuit boards through a series of metal pins. They will
look more like traditional microprocessors, said Manny
Vara, an Intel spokesman.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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June 19,1998
The Register
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Pre-empting a Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) investigation into alleged monopolistic practices,
Intel has filed a counter-suit against Intergraph, the
company that sparked US government against it. Intel
filed its response to Intergraph's suit in an Alabama
court and at the same time claimed the company had
infringed seven of its patents. Intel also claimed that
it had a long-standing cross-licensing deal with
Intergraph which meant the case against Intel was null
and void and asked for a summary judgement in its favour,
according to reports.
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By Margaret Kane
June 18, 1998
ZD Net News
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Intel Corp. has asked a judge to
dispense with a trial and issue a ruling in its dispute
with Intergraph Corp. But its response to that original
suit may get it into hot water with the Federal Trade
Commission. Intel on Wednesday filed a motion for
summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Alabama, asking the court to decide
on patent infringement claims filed by Intergraph last
year. Intel maintains the patents are covered in a prior
licensing agreement it signed with National Semiconductor
Corp., which sold the patents to Intergraph in 1987 along
with assets of its Advanced Processor Division.
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By Elinor Mills
June 18, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
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Intel said Thursday it is asking a judge
to dismiss patent infringement and other claims in a
lawsuit filed against it by Intergraph and is alleging
that Intergraph has infringed on seven of its patents
instead. In the motion for summary judgment and
counterclaims filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in
the Northern District of Alabama, Intel also asked the
court to rule that it does not have to disclose its trade
secrets to Intergraph and to order Intergraph to return
alleged Intel trade secrets. Intel's counterclaim seeks
punitive damages and unspecified damages for breach of
contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and patent
infringement among other claims.
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| June 18, 1998 |
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By Richard Barry
June 17, 1998
ZDNet UK
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Sources close to Intel have confirmed
that the forthcoming Mendocino processor will not use the
Slot 1 architecture. Instead, Mendocino, which Intel
hopes will receive a more positive reaction than its
predecessor the Celeron, will sit on a pin grid array
(PGA) similar to socket 7. Intel has confirmed the
report saying "the socket is a PGA called socket 370
and enables OEMS (Intel customers) to achieve cost
savings. Slot 1 is more expensive because of its
packaging".
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By David Lammers
June 18, 1998
EE Times
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Intel Corp. said it has tested the
initial 64- and 72-Mbit Direct Rambus DRAMs from Toshiba
Corp. (Tokyo) and found that they meet Intel's speed
targets. Intel confirmed on Tuesday that the parts had
passed pipelined read/write testing at the 800-MHz speed,
including initialization procedures and power management.
Testing of initial silicon from LG Semicon (Seoul, South
Korea) is currently in progress at Intel.
Intel has not only stuck by the Rambus approach, but
has even dropped the idea of using double-data-rate (DDR)
DRAMs in graphics subsystems, said a DRAM technology
manager for Fujitsu Ltd. The manager said that Fujitsu is
also ready with engineering samples of its Direct RDRAMs.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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June 18, 1998
The Register
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Intel has confirmed it will introduce a
new socket design next year aimed at the low end market
but claims it will not abandon its proprietary Slot One
technology. A representative said: "The idea is
that it's cheaper to make and you won't need retaining
clips on the processor, as with Slot One." OEMs, he
said, were told of Intel's plans a few days ago.
But he said that the new pin grid array (PGA) design,
which Intel snappily dubs the 370-pin Socket, will be
incompatible with either Socket Seven, used by
competitors AMD and NatSemi-Cyrix, or the P6-based Socket
Eight, which the Pentium Pro used.
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By Matt Loney
June 18, 1998
ZDNet UK
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Intel Corp. confirmed Wednesday that the
next-generation Celeron processor will be available in
both a socket and a slot architecture, signaling that
some PCs with the processor will cost less than expected. The
next Celeron, code-named Mendocino, will include 128Kb of
on-chip level 2 cache and will launch later this year in
the same Single Edge Processor Package as the current
Celerons.
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By Andy Santoni
June 17, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
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Aiming to reduce the cost of Basic PCs,
Intel next year will offer Celeron processors in a
pin-grid array (PGA) package that plugs in to a new
socket that is an alternative to Slot 1. So far called
simply "370-pin Socket," the interface is not
compatible with either Socket 7, the Pentium interface,
or Socket 8, the Pentium Pro interface. It is meant to
complement, not displace, the Slot 1 design, according to
an Intel representative.
"We are not moving away from Slot 1," the
representative said.
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| June 16, 1998 |
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June 15, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
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National Semiconductor's Cyrix Corp.
today announced the M II-333 X86 microprocessor for
desktop PCs, dropping the price on its older M II-300
chip. The new M II-333 does not run at 333 MHz;
rather, the 333 rating is used to give buyers a sense of
the chip's performance compared against an Intel
processor. After the company developed versions of its
686MX line at the equivalent of 300 and 333 MHz, Cyrix
renamed those chips as the "M II" product
family.
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| June 15, 1998 |
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By George Leopold and Brian Fuller
June 12, 1998
EE Times
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As it prepares to present its antitrust
case against Intel Corp. to an administrative law judge,
the Federal Trade Commission continues to pursue a
broader investigation of Intel's chip-design and
licensing procedures that could have far greater
implications for the PC industry. Sources confirm that
FTC lawyers are probing whether interface changes Intel
made in its Pentium chip design represented an
improvement in performance or instead created
incompatibilities that locked in OEMs.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Mark Hachman and Chandra Steele
June 12, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
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Government allegations that Intel
misused its monopoly control over the microprocessor
marketplace are likely to have little effect unless
prosecutors widen the scope of their investigation,
according to industry observers. The case, which was
filed last week by the Federal Trade Commission, charges
Intel (company profile) withheld crucial documents from
customers who refused to relinquish key patent rights.
Those patents would have enabled Intel to tighten its
monopoly grip on the processor industry, according to the
FTC.
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June 15, 1998
The Register
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News that IBM is considering building
its copper interconnect technology into Intel-based Xeon
servers last week was followed by announcements of other
ways it will use the super-fast process. And CPU
manufacturers Cyrix, AMD and Centaur-IDT are also set to
benefit from the technology. Last week, a senior
executive from IBM Emea, said that the technology, which
uses copper rather than aluminium, would eventually
result in x.86 based systems which would give a 40 per
cent performance boost. Intel then expressed surprise at
the announcement, saying that while it will use copper
interconnect, it would come with its .13 micron
technology, which is some years off. Earlier this year,
IBMs CEO Lou Gerstner, promised such technology would
arrive by this summer.
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June 8, 1998
The Register
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A Taiwanese engineer is seeking help in
mounting a lawsuit against Intel in the US. I-Ming Lin,
who filed against Intel in Taiwan last December, claims
Intel has been involved in defrauding consumers via a
combination of indifference to and complicity in
overclocking. He is seeking help in Chinese-English
translation and expert witnesses who could help him put
together a case for the US courts. I-Ming Lin has
produced a document outlining his case, a translation of
which is available on the Inside Intell site, http://www.pro-desk.com/inside/special/remarking/lawsuit_p1.htm.
The basis of his action is that "regardless of the
manufacturer, Intel, AMD or Cyrix, the processor dies
from wafers within the same family are identical in cost
and design in the process of manufacturing, testing, and
packaging." Therefore, he says, all of the
processors produced from these dies are capable of the
same clock speed, which in Intel's case is defined by a
rating standard as "the targeted core speed which
can be considered "good" after manufacturing
and rating procedures."
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By Will Wade
June 12, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
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Toshiba America Electronic Components
Inc. here today announced it has shipped functioning
direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) silicon that is running at 800
MHz. The company says this would make its chips the
first such devices to operate at that speed. Toshiba says
its samples are now undergoing system testing and chip
set validation.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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June 15, 1998
The Register
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Investigators from the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) are set to extend their inquiries into
Intel's business by focusing on other areas than patents.
According to several unconnected reports, the FTC will
broaden its case against the chip giant by investigating
whether its introduction of proprietary Slot One
technology put competitors, including Cyrix, AMD and
Centaur-IDT at a disadvantage.
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By Lisa DiCarlo
June 12, 1998
PC Week Online
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Although the Federal Trade Commission
lodged a complaint against Intel Corp. earlier this week,
the agency is far from finished with its investigation. The
FTC slapped Intel with a lawsuit charging that the
semiconductor manufacturer unlawfully used its monopoly
power to separately force Compaq Computer Corp., Digital
Equipment Corp. and Intergraph Corp. into giving up
specific patents-royalty-free-to Intel.
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