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| Top Stories for March 3, 2000 (details below) | |
| ZD Net UK | Has Intel fallen behind in the chip race? |
| ZD Net UK | Exclusive: AMD set for three-chip rollout 900MHz, 950MHz and 1GHz chips are set to hit the streets soon, making for possible PR win over Intel |
| The Register Files | |
| The Register | AMD Athlon stormed during Q1 says channel |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of February 27, 2000 |
Older News |
| March 3, 2000 | ||
Has Intel fallen behind in the chip race?By Berst Alert March 2, 2000 |
The 1 GHz chip is coming soon. Intel and AMD are racing to break the gigahertz barrier this spring.
Chip progress continues unabated -- and may in fact accelerate as aggressive rivals challenge Intel in both the desktop and server markets. Intel was once the processor king. It could keep its older chips in play for a long time, secure from any challenge. That's no longer the case. Tuesday AMD slashed prices on its 800 MHz Athlon chips by 29%, undercutting Intel, which lowered its prices Monday. |
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Exclusive: AMD set for three-chip rollout
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AMD is set to deliver a "one-two-three" punch to Intel "imminently" with the simultaneous release of its 900MHz,
950MHz and 1GHz Athlon processors, ZDNet UK has learned.
According to sources, AMD will toss out the usual procedure of releasing one clock speed at a time in a move designed to humiliate its gargantuan rival Intel in an ongoing PR war. If AMD pulls the move off, and the source warns that "this is the goal, but these things can change in a minute", it will also make AMD's 850MHz Athlon -- currently the fastest processor available in full production volumes -- only the fourth-fastest on the chip maker's roster. Its 850MHz chip was introduced on 11 February. |
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The Register Files |
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AMD Athlon stormed during Q1 says channelBy Mike Magee March 2, 2000 |
Sales of AMD's Athlon have gone through the roof in Q1 of this year, channel players confirmed today.
Steve Clark, marketing director of Microtronica Europe, said sales of the processor, particularly during February, were very strong, accounting for a large percentile rise in microprocessor sales. Microtronica, like AVNet, sells microprocessors from both Intel and AMD. |
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| March 2, 2000 | ||
1-GHz Pentium III computers coming this monthBy Michael Kanellos March 1, 2000 |
Consumers will likely be able to buy PCs containing 1-GHz chips later this month, a lurch forward in the release date of these systems, sources said today.
Hewlett-Packard will start shipping consumer PCs containing Intel's Pentium III running at 1 GHz (1,000 megahertz) later this month, sources at HP said. Corporate computers containing these chips won't come out until June. |
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A talk with VIA's Donald Eubank about VIA's recently unveiled Cyrix III processorMarch 1, 2000 |
So what are the frequencies (and their respective PR ratings) and the front side buses and the MHz of VIA Cyrix® III?
The PR ratings are based on a combination of our 100 to 133MHz front side bus and the 400 and 433MHz cores. Processors within single numerical PR rating itself may be from a couple different combinations. |
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Transmeta keeps lid on detailsBy Sam Williams March 1, 2000 |
Open-source observers hoping to glean a few tidbits about the deeply secretive
Transmeta Corp. during that company's presentation at the Robertson Stephens Tech 2000 Conference here in San Francisco came away disappointed.
Nevertheless, CEO David Ditzel's 20-minute speech drew impressed murmurs from an audience of roughly 80 professional investors. |
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The Register Files |
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Intel positions Celeron against AthlonBy Peter Sherriff March 1, 2000 |
What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Chipzilla was snug inside its ivory tower, pouring scorn on the 'imitators'. Everything in the garden was rosy and world+dog waited eagerly for every speed bump Intel deigned to release. At the low end, the chip behemoth poured scorn on little Cyrix and its System on a Chip plans.
We sat through numerous presentations from senior Intel dudes assuring us that the SoC concept was complete crap because upgrades were impossible. At the high end no one took AMD seriously, due to yield and reliability questions. Intel had everything under control. |
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| March 1, 2000 | ||
AMD's Sledgehammer is a blow to Intel's ItaniumBy Richard Barry February 29, 2000 |
AMD chief Sanders says Itanium will be a stumbling block for Intel in the 32-bit arena and he can't wait to cash in on
it...
Jerry Sanders, chief executive and chairman of Intel rival AMD, said during an interview in Hannover on Monday that his company's 64-bit Sledgehammer processor, due at the end of 2001, will be "the realisation of AMD's dream". Sledgehammer will allow the company to exploit what it sees as a tactical error in Intel's 64-bit strategy. |
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Eye2Eye with Jerry Sanders of AMDFebruary 29, 2000 |
You've heard all the hype from the Intel camp, but tomorrow you can hear what AMD has to say exclusively on ZDNet
UK News
It's not often Jerry Sanders speaks to the press. When he does, he's usually rushed off by a swarm of PR bodies before he has a chance to say something controversial. However, ZDNet's editor, Richard Barry, had the opportunity to sit down with Sanders at a luncheon in Hannover on Monday to discuss AMD's processor roadmap, the mighty Intel and what challenges lie ahead in its attempt to crack the corporate arena in the battle for the server/workstation market. |
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The Register Files |
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No easy Itanium-McKinley transition for IntelBy Mike Magee February 29, 2000 |
Differences between the architecture of Intel's Itanium (Merced) and its future McKinley design mean that moving from one to the other is unlikely to prove a piece of cake.
Sources said that McKinley will differ so radically from the Itanium that Intel is pushing further resources into Itanium to transform it from the development platform everyone was talking about last year to a real, live kicking platform. |
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| February 29, 2000 | ||
Outlook for Rambus not rosy
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Despite Intel Corp.'s lobbying efforts and the more than $1 billion it has invested in memory chip makers to spur adoption of Rambus technology, the memory architecture remains a minor player in the PC marketplace.
Analysts predict that over the next two years, RDRAM (Rambus dynamic RAM) will continue to be overshadowed by SDRAM (synchronous DRAM), a less expensive and battle-tested memory technology. |
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Intel to debut Celerons in MarchBy John G. Spooner February 28, 2000 |
"Star Trek" star Patrick Stewart probably won't be on hand at this launch, but Intel Corp. is planning for the next generation of Celeron chips in March.
The new chips, running at clock speeds of up to 600MHz, will give low-cost, or "value PCs," a performance bump but without raising prices. Consumers will be able to buy a 600MHz value PC for about $1,000 without a monitor following the launch. |
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The Register Files |
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Intel admits SDRAM as good as Rambus memoryBy Mike Magee February 28, 2000 |
A product change notification (PCN) from Intel has supplied more details about the difficulties with three motherboards which we exclusively revealed a while back. And other documents we have seen show that Intel believes that synchronous memory can perform as well as
Rambus.
PCN 943 is a document Intel issued to its customers ten days ago which includes information on the errata which is causing it to withdraw two 840 mobos and one 820 mobo. |
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Intel postpones 866MHz, 833MHz CuMine launchBy Mike Magee February 28, 2000 |
Roadmaps Intel sent to both its channel and OEM partners last week showed that the company was set to release 866MHz and 850MHz Pentium IIIs today, as well as a pair of faster
Celerons.
But according to an Intel representative today, there are no plans to release the microprocessors in the "imminent future". |
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Sun hits back at Intel Itanium tale...By Mike Magee February 28, 2000 |
RISC chip manufacturer Sun has hit back at Intel for its statements about the future of Solaris on the IA-64 platform.
At the Intel Developer Forum held in a desert location a fortnight back, a whispering campaign from Chipzilla spin doctors led to an unseemly row where Sun was cast as the villain because it was not putting any muscle into porting applications for the Itanium big boxes. |
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| February 28, 2000 | ||
ST Micro teams with Rise Technology to tackle Internet appliance marketBy Mark Hachman February 25, 2000 |
Having conceded the PC market to their stronger rivals, x86 processor vendors Rise Technology Co. and STMicroelectronics announced today that they will jointly develop integrated devices for Internet appliances.
The marriage combines Rise's low-power mP6 processor core with a suite of ST peripheral logic. Rise executives said a co-developed product is conservatively targeted for early 2001. The two companies hold rights to second-source products that combine Rise and ST intellectual property. |
See Today's Related Stories |
Via's low-end processor push drives into Internet-appliance marketBy Mark Hachman February 23, 2000 |
Via Technologies Inc. formally launched its Joshua microprocessor Tuesday, as part of a crusade to offer OEMs choice in the low end of the PC-microprocessor market.
Wen-Chi Chen, president and chief executive of the Taiwan-based company, promoted the Joshua, now branded as the Cyrix III, as embodying both his personal religious beliefs as well as his company's motto: “We Connect.” |
See Today's Related Stories |
Via Rolls Out First Processor
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Chipset maker Via Technologies Inc. on Tuesday jumped into the microprocessor market with a CPU aimed at low-priced PCs.
The Via Cyrix III processor marks Taiwan-based Via's entry into the processor arena after acquiring National Semiconductor Corp.'s Cyrix stand-alone PC processor business and Integrated Device Technology Inc.'s Centaur x86 microprocessor design subsidiary. |
See Today's Related Stories |
Intel's 820 & 840 chipsets may show memory errorsBy Matthew Thomas February 22, 2000 |
Intel's latest chipsets have been plagued with yet another memory related affects some system configurations and will lead to delays in the availability of three Intel motherboards.
Intel said that its 820 and 840 chipsets might show memory errors from the combined use of the memory repeater hub and error correction coding. The bug is in the translation from RDRAM support to SDRAM, which is part of Intel's retooling of the chipsets to allow system makers to use a variety of different memory chips rather than Rambus memory. |
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Intel exec: 'No excuse' for recent misstepsBy Lisa DiCarlo February 24, 2000 |
As Intel Corp. spreads the gospel here about its role in creating a global Internet economy, it's clear the company has been somewhat humbled by its many missteps over the past year. But with huge projects like Itanium and Willamette on tap for 2000, Intel doesn't have much, if any, margin for error.
The Enterprise Server Group is the latest to suffer from problems -- a bug in the 840 chip set that forced the company to discontinue the sale of three supporting motherboards. The problem will be fixed in the next stepping, or production cycle, of the chip set, the company said. |
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Inside Intel Again: Merced vs. Crusoe ... or "CISC and RISC and VLIW -- oh my!"By Rob Landley February 25, 2000 |
So finally, after a week of articles (Parts One, Two, Three), I'm ready to talk about the big new idea behind both Intel's
(Nasdaq: INTC) "Merced" design and Transmeta's "Crusoe." It is... putting more processor cores on each chip!
Oooooh.
The real trick to adding more processor cores, of course, is figuring out how to make use of more cores at the same time, and once again it involves rethinking how instructions get fed into them. For most of the past decade, a good technique for doing this was percolating through a similar mix of universities and corporate labs that brought us RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing), and it was doing so under the name VLIW (Very Long Instruction Words). More recently, Intel started using the idea under the name EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing). EPIC sounds more like RISC or CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing), but I'm going to stick with the name VLIW because that's what the rest of the world has been calling it all along. |
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The Register Files |
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Mobo makers unenthusiastic about CaminoBy Mike Magee February 27, 2000 |
A straw poll of a number of manufacturers exhibiting at CeBIT has
demonstrated that Intel's Camino i820 chipset is unpopular with third party
mainboard vendors.
Soyo, Chaintech, Gigabyte, Asus and a clutch of other Taiwanese mobo manufacturers were displaying boards using the i820 chipset, but conversations with staff at these stands demonstrated a general lack of enthusiasm -- and weak sales -- for products based on the Intel solution. |
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Intel could be forced to go fabless -- ViaBy Mike Magee February 25, 2000 |
Wen Chi Chen, president and CEO of Via, formally introduced the Cyrix III chip here at CeBIT today but in the process introduced several new elements.
Despite the slides being very similar to those shown in San Jose three days back, Mr Chi Chen expanded on his company's plans. He said that Via will stay fabless, because of the low cost model the company is pursuing, and suggested that major competitor Intel might also eventually have to pursue a fabless model. |
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Crusoe to dominate Taiwanese production, says TransmetaBy John Lettice February 22, 2000 |
Transmeta CEO Dave Ditzel and VP marketing Jim Chapman did have something new to say when they showed up in London yesterday, but history will judge whether or not it was smart. According to Chapman, Transmeta's Crusoe and Mobile Linux combo is being adopted by the entire Taiwanese IT industry for Web pad-type devices.
By a strange coincidence Taiwan's National Science Council last week announced that it would be investing around $650 million (US) in order to boost Taiwan's Internet Appliance industry over the next five years. In the view of the NSC the IA industry is the Next Big Thing, and the Taiwanese government intends to have the island producing somewhere in the region of $5 billion (US) worth of them by 2005. |
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NatSemi says Transmeta, Intel no threat to GeodeBy Mike Magee February 27, 2000 |
A senior executive at National Semiconductor has told The Register that the firm believes it can stay ahead of Transmeta's Crusoe technology and continue to make big design wins for its Geode, x86 compliant, technology.
Jurgen Heldt, marketing director of National Semiconductor Europe, said that since its launch last year, his company had made large design wins, the most significant being with Microsoft and Ericsson, announced earlier in the week at CeBIT. Sources said that the company is set to announce further big OEM design wins in the next few weeks. |
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AMD Thunderbird is go goBy Mike Magee February 25, 2000 |
Stopped by the big AMD stand at much bigger Halle 13 here at CeBIT to check out how far the company was advancing in the plans it has to introduce the Thunderbird Athlon et al.
There we met Steve Lapinski who whisked out a Thunderbird chip who told us that AMD is almost there with the part. In passing, he whisked us through a roadmap and also confirmed something we wrote about two or three days back -- to wit, the K6-2 plus and the K6-III are now firmly aimed at the mobile market. |
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Today's Related Stories |
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Rise licenses x86-core to STM as part of SOC partnershipFebruary 25, 2000 |
Rise Technology Co. has licensed its sixth generation x86-based processor to STMicroelectronics as part of a system-on-a-chip (SOC) partnership agreement signed by the two companies.
Through the deal, the companies will build SOC devices specifically to address information appliance applications based on specific shared semiconductor intellectual property (SIP). STMicro and Rise will jointly develop, market, and sell the devices. The agreement also gives Rise second source rights to STMicro’ existing x86-based PC-on-a-chip product, the STPC. |
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Via Cyrix III processor aims to take on Intel, AMDBy Mark Hachman February 22, 2000 |
Via Technologies Inc. today will formally announce its long-awaited Joshua microprocessor, challenging Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp. in the low end of the PC market.
Once again, AMD and Intel find themselves on the receiving end of a strategy both have employed to great effect in the past-undercutting their rivals' prices. Via's Joshua chip, branded as the "Via Cyrix III," is priced about $100 less than AMD's K6-2 chip while integrating a greater amount of on-chip cache. |
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