| August 7, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
August 6, 1998
C/Net
|
Touted as a major milestone for Intel
and the computer industry in general, Merced, the
company's first 64-bit chip, appears to be losing its
luster because of delays, performance issues, and
upstaging by other processor manufacturers. Industry
experts have called into question the wide-ranging
commercial rollout of Merced, which has been pushed back
from late 1999 to mid-2000. Instead, it now appears that
the chip which will propel Intel deep into the 64-bit
computing arena will be McKinley, a Merced successor
that's touted as having "twice the performance"
and likely to come out in 2001.
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By Carmen Nobel
August 6, 1998
PC Week Online
|
Intel Corp. is delaying shipment of the
next version of its 450NX Xeon chip set for servers until
at least the beginning of 1999, company officials have
confirmed. The chip set, which can scale up to four
processors on a server and can be configured with as much
as 2MB of cache and 8GB of main memory, was originally
expected by October.
Dell Computer Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. last
week began shipping servers with the 400MHz version of
the 450NX, which can support between 512KB and 1MB of
cache. Those servers had been delayed because of
previously reported bugs in the chip set that Intel has
since fixed.
|
See Related Stories Intel's
Xeon delayed again for servers
Chip
set bug to delay Xeon server rollout till late summer
|
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By Ron Wilson
August 7, 1998
EE Times
|
Armed with a hot CMOS process from
parent National Semiconductor Corp. and an aggressive
superscalar architecture, Cyrix Corp. is taking aim at
the high end of Intel's IA-32 processor line. The company
is planning to pop its next hot CPU core, code-named
Jalapeno, just in time to catch Intel in mid-transition
from the IA-32 to Merced. "We are aiming Jalapeno
at the 600-MHz Pentium-II performance level," said
Cyrix vice president of engineering Mark Bluhm.
"That will be much faster than any estimates we have
seen of Merced speed on IA-32 code, and it should be
competitive with Intel's IA-32 high end at the
time."
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By Michael Kanellos
August 6, 1998
C/Net
|
Shortly after Intel moves to its 64-bit
chip architecture in the year 2000, the chip giant is
expected to switch over to a copper chip design,
following on the heels of such rivals as IBM. The
transition will likely come as Intel moves to the second
generation of its 64-bit "IA-64" architecture,
according to sources familiar with the company's plans.
Copper, which conducts better than the aluminum circuits
found in current chips, is expected to lead to faster
processors.
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By Reuters
August 6, 1998
C/Net
|
Silicon Storage Technology said a patent
infringement lawsuit filed against it by chipmaker Intel
was dismissed by a U.S. District Court in Delaware, on
the basis of jurisdiction. U.S. District Court Judge
McKelvie said in a 21-page ruling that Intel failed to
establish a basis for the Delaware court to take up the
dispute, which involve two companies based in Silicon
Valley. Intel filed the suit last November against the
Sunnyvale, California, flash memory maker.
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August 6, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
|
U.S. District Court in Delaware
dismissed Intel Corp.’s lawsuit against Silicon
Storage Technology, Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif. The Judge
ruled that Intel had failed to establish a basis for the
Delaware court's taking jurisdiction of the dispute,
which involved two companies located a few miles apart in
Silicon Valley.
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By Rebecca Sykes
August 6, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
|
U.S. business users are increasingly
willing to purchase PCs that contain processors from
companies other than chip giant Intel, according to two
studies released Thursday. Of 2,624 U.S. businesses
surveyed, 34 percent are considering buying PCs with
processors made by Advanced Micro Devices or Cyrix
instead of Intel, according to market researcher ZD
Market Intelligence, in La Jolla, Calif.
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By Corey Grice
August 6, 1998
C/Net
|
The semiconductor industry got a break
from its ongoing woes today, with many of the market
leaders gaining as the stock market closed higher than it
has all week. Meanwhile, a new report provides evidence
that the sector soon may rebound. National
Semiconductor was the big winner today, closing up nearly
17 percent at 13.875 on news that investment bank
.Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette upgraded the chipmaker
to a "top pick" rating from "buy."
Dallas Semiconductor was up more than 8 percent,
finishing at 33.375, and Advanced Micro Devices closed
more than 5 percent higher at 16.75.
|
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| August 6, 1998 |
|
By Michael Kanellos
August 6, 1998
C/Net
|
Touted as a major milestone for Intel
and the computer industry in general, Merced, the
company’s first 64-bit chip, appears to be losing
its luster because of delays, performance issues, and
upstaging by other chip vendors. Industry experts and
even Intel executives have made comments that call into
question the commercial viability of Merced, which has
been pushed back to mid-2000. It now appears that the
chip which will propel Intel deep into 64-bit computing
territory will be McKinley, the Merced successor that
will likely come out in 2001.
|
See Related
Stories Problems
delay Merced
chip
|
What's
Wrong With Merced
Implementation Woes May Overshadow
IA-64 Advantages
By Linley Gwennap
August 3, 1998
Microprocessor Report
|
While Intel was remarkably forthright in
disclosing that the scheduled delivery date of its first
IA-64 processor, Merced, had slipped to mid-2000 (see MPR
6/22/98, p. 1), the company was not as forthcoming
regarding the reasons for the slip. Sources indicate that
the project, under way for more than four years, is
facing problems that could jeopardize Merced's existence
as a viable product. Even if that chip is compromised,
however, IA-64 itself is likely to prosper. Intel's
claims that Merced would deliver "industry-leading
performance" were based in part on a plan to deliver
the chip before most other 0.18-micron processors. This
IC process advantage, not an instruction-set advantage,
might have boosted Merced beyond competing products in
performance. But with the latest delay, Merced will be
competing on a more level playing field.
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August 5, 1998
The Register
|
A market research survey has shown that
many US businesses are prepared to shift from Intel CPUs
to alternative microprocessors from its competitors. The
news will bring comfort to AMD, NatSemi-Cyrix and IDT,
all of which have endured a series of poor financial
quarters, but could wipe the smile off Intel
shareholders' faces.
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By Stephanie Miles
August 5, 1998
C/Net
|
A growing number of businesses don't
care if their PCs feature Intel inside, according to a
new survey, but that doesn't mean rivals will soon make
substantial gains. Although 90 percent of businesses
have historically chosen Intel-based PCs, 34 percent of
some 2,624 companies say they are considering switching
over to AMD- or Cyrix-based systems, according to ZD
Market Intelligence.
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Michael Slater
August 3, 1998
Microprocessor Report
|
As the positions of each of Intel's
competitors in the PC microprocessor market have evolved,
it has become clear that most of the battle has been for
the least expensive processors. PC vendors have worked
hard to bring down entry-level PC prices, scrutinizing
the cost of every component in the system--and the
microprocessor is no exception. Even Intel has gotten
into the act, with the Celeron-266 soon to hit $86.
Judging from the PCs that have been announced, Celeron's
price seems acceptable for $999 models but not for
systems selling for $799 or less.
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By Will Wade
August 5, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
|
Intel has denied that its Pentium
microprocessors infringe on patents owned by an Illinois
company, as alleged in a $500 million lawsuit filed
recently. "We've done an evaluation and we don't
believe our products infringe on their patents,"
said an Intel spokesman. "We believe the suit has no
merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously."
|
See Related
Stories Intel
hit with $500 million patent lawsuit
Other related stories
|
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August 5, 1998
The Register
|
IBM's latest 'magic bullet' for faster,
more efficient chips has failed to impress Intel's
engineers, as an Intel internal briefing document makes
clear. Earlier this week, IBM said it had mastered a
technology called silicon on insulator (SOI) which would
give both a performance breakthrough and a reduction in
power consumption on semiconductors. That, claimed IBM
Microelectronics, could lead to processors operating at
three times the speed they currently do.
|
See Related
Stories IBM
takes SOI technology to market
|
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August 5, 1998
The Register
|
Chip giant Intel has described reports
that it considering investing in a Hyundai plant in
Scotland as completely spurious. Reports in the UK
national press had said that Intel was set to play the
white knight and rescue its empty semiconductor plant in
Fife through a £700 million joint venture.
But Intel said today that those reports, and others
suggesting that it would close its Leixlip, Dublin plant,
are absolutely untrue. A representative said that the
only conversations Intel had had with South Korean
companies was following a trip that its CEO, Craig
Barratt, made to South Korea earlier this year. Although
Barratt had talked to various conglomerates including
Samsung and Hyundai then, these talks were unrelated to
possible acquisitions.
|
See Related
Stories Intel,
Hyundai in venture talks
Intel
Not Confirming Rescue Of Hyundai Plant
|
| August 5, 1998 |
|
By Charles Cooper
August 4, 1998
ZD Net News
|
Intel Corp. remains the colossus of
chipmakers but the giant company is losing its vice-like
grip over the business. An increasing number of
businesses say they are willing to seriously consider
buying computers powered by chips made by either of
Intel's chief rivals, Advanced Micro Devices or Cyrix
Corp., according to a study by ZD Market Intelligence to
be released Wednesday.
|
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By Jennifer Hagendorf
August 4, 1998
Computer Reseller News
|
Intel previewed Monday new
system-management capabilities for mobile systems at its
Wired for Management Summit, held here. The Santa
Clara, Calif.-based company (company profile)
demonstrated management features for notebook systems
that allow for remote system wake-up and universal
network boot. These features enable remote, off-hour
administration and configuration of mobile systems via
LAN or telephone line, said Terry Dickson, director of
Intel's Wired for Management Initiative.
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By Michael Kanellos
August 4, 1998
C/Net
|
A flotilla of new notebooks will set
sail on September 9 when Intel releases a 300-MHz Pentium
II for portable PCs and cuts prices on the rest of its
mobile chip line. What's more, the September price
cuts will be closely followed by another round of price
drops that will lower the 300-MHz chip from its
introductory price of $637 to around $371, according to
sources. Together, the new chip and two pricing actions
could mark another stage in the notebook world's
developing low-cost market.
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By Reuters
August 4, 1998
C/Net
|
Intel is in talks with Hyundai Group
about forming a 700 million pound ($1.15 billion) joint
venture to use the Korean company's semiconductor plant
in Scotland, the Times newspaper reported. The report
in tomorrow's edition said the companies were considering
producing memory chips 16 times more powerful than those
made by Germany's Siemens at its plant in northeast
England, which closed last week.
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By Andrew Craig
August 5, 1998
TechWeb
|
Intel would not confirm reports
Wednesday that it may step in to rescue Korean chip
manufacturer Hyundai's troubled new semiconductor plant
in Scotland. Construction work on Hyundai's 1 billion
pound ($1.64 billion) facility in Dunfermline, Scotland,
was indefinitely suspended in June. The plant was
originally expected to open at the end of this year.
Hyundai blamed the downturn in the memory-chip market for
the delay.
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|
| August 4, 1998 |
|
By Alexander Wolfe
August 3, 1998
EE Times
|
Intel Corp. has been hit with a $500
million lawsuit charging infringement of an obscure
RISC-architecture patent developed by a once high-flying
chip startup. Intel officials said the suit is without
merit and they plan to contest it. The patent at issue
was awarded in November 1996 to International Meta
Systems Inc., which was then developing the Meta6000 CPU,
a Pentium Pro-class clone microprocessor intended to fit
into a Pentium Socket-7 connector. Specifically, the
patent is number 5,574,927, "RISC architecture
computer configured for emulation of the instruction set
of a target computer."
|
See
Today's Related Stories |
|
By David Lammers
August 3, 1998
EE Times
|
IBM Corp. will use silicon-on-insulator
(SOI) technology to manufacture a range of logic ICs,
starting with a PowerPC 750 microprocessor in the first
half of 1999. By signaling that it is ready to apply SOI
technology to volume manufacturing, IBM has set the stage
for yet another epic shift in the semiconductor industry,
less than eight months after saying it had reached a
similar confidence level with copper interconnects. IBM
will combine copper interconnects with SOI transistors in
a range of MPUs next year, and expects performance gains
of 20 to 30 percent from the shift to SOI. By applying
copper, SOI and low-k interlevel-metal dielectrics to the
gigahertz processor design unveiled last February at the
International Solid State Circuits Conference, IBM
expects to be able to push commercial processor speeds to
the gigahertz range in two to three years—faster
than competitors such as Intel Corp.
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By Ed Scannell
August 3, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
|
IBM on Monday announced it has come up
with a way of making high-speed transistors for micro
chips that will result in significant performance
improvements in its systems, ranging from
multimillion-dollar mainframes to inexpensive handheld
devices. The new technology, called
silicon-on-insulator (SOI), essentially is a method of
protecting millions of transistors on a chip by wrapping
it in a "blanket" of insulation. This blanket
cuts down on the potential harmful electrical effects
that can rob a chip's energy and adversely effect its
performance, company officials said.
|
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| Today's Related Stories |
|
By Michael Kanellos
August 3, 1998
C/Net
|
A technological consulting group is
seeking approximately $500 million from Intel for alleged
infringement on a patent relating to a now-defunct effort
to develop Pentium-class chip clone. TechSearch, an
Illinois intellectual property consulting group, is
pursuing a patent infringement case that alleges that
some of the intellectual property underlying the Pentium
Pro and Pentium II processors infringes upon patents
issued to International Meta Systems (IMS).
|
|
|
August 4, 1998
The Register
|
A Chicago company is suing Intel for
$500 million, claiming the Pentium infringes a patent it
bought from a failed chip cloning company, and that Intel
therefore owes it royalties. The patent in question
was awarded in November 1996 to International Meta
Systems (IMS), and covers a Risc architecture configured
to emulate the instruction set of another processor. But
IMS didn't make a fortune out of its Pentium-cloning
operations after all, and has been selling off its assets
- this particular one went to an outfit called
TechSearch.
|
|
| August 3, 1998 |
|
August 3, 1998
U-Geek
|
IDT, maker of the WinChip family of x86
chips, is losing money and will cut 400 jobs over the
next six months. Most of the losses stemmed from a
slowdown in the SRAM market, which IDT is heavily
involved in. The profits from the WinChip were not enough
to offset their other losses. IDT also blames their
failure to keep up with clock speeds from competing
companies. Right now, the fastest WinChip runs at 240
MHz, compared to over 300 MHz for Cyrix (300PR), AMD, and
Intel.
|
|
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By Alexander Wolfe
August 3, 1998
EE Times
|
A battle is heating up at the bleeding
edge of microprocessor technology as Intel Corp. and
Compaq Computer Corp.'s Alpha group rush to ready their
competing 64-bit architectures. New technical details
have come to light about the race, which pits Intel's
Merced, due out in mid-2000, against the next-generation
Alpha CPU, known as the 21364. (Compaq acquired the Alpha
design team when it bought Digital Equipment Corp. in
June.) Intel hasn't talked much about Merced since last
fall, when it outlined the explicitly parallel
instruction computing (EPIC) architecture that forms the
basis of the CPU. Compaq has said nothing about its plans
for an improved Alpha, probably because a current design,
called the 21264, is moving to market and won't ship in
quantity until later this year.
|
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By Reuters
July 31, 1998
C/Net
|
IBM will unveil today a breakthrough in
a process to build high-speed transistors that can boost
the performance of computers and communications gear by
up to 35 percent. The world's largest computer maker
said that the new technology called
"silicon-on-insulator" (SOI), represents a
fundamental advance in the way chips are built.
Specifically, silicon-on-insulator can be used to
create higher performance microchips for big computer
systems like servers and mainframes, and more
power-efficient chips for battery-operated hand-held
devices, like cellphones, it said.
|
See
Today's Related Stories |
|
August 2, 1998
The Register
|
Amidst the flurry of product
announcements and price cuts that Intel has made this
year, its announcement of a fresh socket design next year
has largely gone unnoticed. But the truth is that it
underlines Intel’s bid to dominate the low-end chip
market and to use any means possible to do so.
Intel confirmed in mid-June that it will introduce a
socket, which it is calling the 370-pin Socket, at some
stage in 1999, so reversing its direction on the Slot
technology which it has heavily promoted over the last
two years.
|
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|
August 3, 1998
U-Geek
|
So far, almost every major chipmaker,
including AMD, Motorola, Sun, Samsung, and IBM, has
announced plans to move to copper interconnects for their
major microprocessors in the next couple of years. Most
plan to make the move while using .25 and .18 micron
feature sizes. Intel is the lone holdout, planning to
move to copper interconnects in 2001 or 2002, when they
move to a .13 micron process. This may give other
chipmakers an edge for '99 and 2000. Some of the
processor speeds that have been thrown around because of
these announcements are a 600 MHz UltraSparc III, 1 GHz
K7, 1 GHz PowerPC, and 1 GHz Alpha. Expect these chips to
be out around the year 2000.
|
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By Mark Hachman
July 31, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
|
Having secured a beachhead in the
mainstream PC arena, Intel Corp. is adopting an
increasingly sophisticated strategy of segmentation as it
renews its push into the server and low-cost PC markets. What
was once considered a “consumer PC,” designed
around a Pentium or Pentium II processor, has splintered
into no fewer than seven distinct classifications, each
with its own price point. At least three separate
“Mainstream Performance” and three “Basic
PC” classes now complement an “Enthusiast”
category. And at the high end of the market, Intel has
identified six server and four workstation segments,
according to the company’s latest confidential road
map, which was obtained from an OEM customer.
|
|
|
August 3, 1998
The Register
|
Sources at Intel have confirmed that a
450MHz Pentium II and Mendocino 300- and 333MHz
processors will now be released on the 24 August. The
Mendocino processors, which have a new core, will become
part of the Celeron, cut-down processor family, and that
means that further price cuts are likely at launch. The
last time Intel cut prices on the Celeron family was at
the end of July.
The 300MHz Mendocino processor will come both with and
without level two cache, and was not slated to appear
until much later this year, while the 333MHz Mendocino
was not due to appear until early next year, the US
sources said. The 450MHz Pentium II may also precipitate
price cuts in the PII range.
|
|
|
By Mark Hachman
July 31, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
|
Intel Corp. will speed up the pace in
which it introduces graphics chips in 1999, confidential
roadmaps show. Intel introduced its current i740 graphics
chip this past February, and is scheduled to debut its
next-generation Portola chip in early 1999. Coloma,
characterized as “the highest performance” chip
for “enthusiast”-class PCs costing above
$2,500, will be released in the second half of 1999.
Intel’s competitors ship 1 to 2 major graphics
products per year. |
|
| Today's Related Stories |
|
August 3, 1998
Semiconductory Business News
|
IBM Corp here today announced a
breakthrough in the use of silicon-on-insulator (SOI)
wafer technology, which the company said will be
introduced into volume production in the first half of
1999 to make high-performance and power-efficient ICs for
a range of system applications. SOI substrates have
long promised to dramatically improve the speed and
power-consumption of transistors compared to standard
silicon wafers used in commercial chip making. A hurdle
in using SOI in commercial applications has been high
cost. After 15 years of R&D work, IBM
Microelectronics said it has developed a manufacturing
process that's suitable for commercial products.
|
|
|
By Crista Souza
August 3, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
|
IBM Corp. has found a way to bring a
niche chip-manufacturing technique to the mainstream and
boost performance of its fastest microprocessors by more
than 30%. The Fishkill, N.Y., technology giant has
incorporated the technique, known as silicon-on-insulator
(SOI), into its main semiconductor production lines, and
plans to introduce a 1-GHz PowerPC 750 chip in the first
half of next year-well ahead of its closest rivals.
IBM is also eyeing SOI as a way to increase the power
efficiency of its DSPs, ASICs, and other chips used in
cellular handsets and portable electronic devices.
|
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|
August 3, 1998
The Register
|
IBM Microelectronics said today it has
made a further breakthrough in developing technology to
create faster semiconductors. That will supplement a
copper-silicon technology it invented towards the end of
last year and which it is close to introducing on some of
its product range.
The latest breakthrough, called silicon-on-insulator
(SOI), is expected to give benefits both in performance
and on battery life, with Big Blue claiming that
processors running at over 1000MHz will now be within
reach.
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