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Microprocessor
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| Top Stories for April 6, 2000 (details below) | |
| EE Times | AMD samples Athlon with copper interconnects |
| The Register Files | |
| The Register | Intel's Garibaldi takes the Rambus biscuit |
| The Register | Intel's Timna to have triple mobo support |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of April 2, 2000 |
Older News |
| April 6, 2000 | ||
AMD samples Athlon with copper interconnectsBy Anthony Cataldo April 5, 2000 |
In a bid to stay one step ahead of market leader Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has started shipping samples of its first copper-based X86 microprocessors as it prepares to report first-quarter sales of more than $1
billion, said the company's chairman and chief executive officer W.J. Sanders III.
Sanders would not reveal the expected clock frequency of AMD's upcoming Athlon processor — code-named Thunderbird — with integrated Level 2 cache and copper interconnects, which it expects to ship by midyear. AMD began shipping its fastest 1-GHz Athlon processors, built with its 0.18-micron process technology and aluminum interconnects, to a limited number of customers last month. |
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The Register Files |
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Intel's Garibaldi takes the Rambus biscuitBy Mike Magee April 5, 2000 |
Although the word on the street is that chipset manufacturers are scurrying to produce a motherboard for Intel's up-and-coming Willamette IA-32 processor, the firm's own offering will, as promised, support Rambus and its
RIMMs.
The boxed motherboard, codenamed Garibaldi, is slated to ship towards the end of this year and, according to roadmaps we have been shown, appears to be the only offering so far available to system builders and PC companies from Intel itself. |
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Intel's Timna to have triple mobo supportBy Mike Magee April 5, 2000 |
The low-end system on a chip processor which Intel will introduce in the third quarter of this year will be supported by three motherboard platforms, The Register can reveal.
The chip, codenamed Timna, is intended to displace the Celeron microprocessor from its position as an entry-level product, and will target ultra-inexpensive PCs. A source at Intel Europe, who showed us internal motherboard roadmaps last week, said that there will be three offerings from the firm, none of which have Rambus memory support. |
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| April 5, 2000 | ||
Samsung preps 1.6-GHz Alpha as Intel, AMD competitorBy Yoonhee Park April 4, 2000 |
Samsung Electronics is developing an Alpha microprocessor that will compete with the 64-bit processors of Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and feature a clock speed as high as 1.6 GHz.
Samsung will launch samples of a 1.4-to-1.6-GHz processor this year, Changkyu Hwang, vice president of Samsung Electronics, revealed during a Korean semiconductor industry strategy symposium here. The announcement quells rumors that Samsung was withdrawing from the 64-bit CPU business because its efforts with the Alpha processor were trailing the respective efforts of Intel andAMD to commercialize 1-GHz processors. |
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3dfx, Intel settle patent dispute with cross license dealApril 4, 2000 |
3dfx Interactive Inc., a maker of graphics chips, said today that it has entered into a mutual patent cross-licensing agreement with Intel Corp. As part of the agreement, 3dfx and the microprocessor giant have "amicably" agreed to dismiss all pending patent infringement lawsuits between 3dfx and Real 3D. Intel acquired Real 3D's technology portfolio last year. | |
Intel - venture investments to boost IA-64By Deborah Gage April 4, 2000 |
'Please Take Our Money'
Now that Intel's IA-64 platform is a mere six months away, the chip giant is scrambling to invest in companies that are willing to back the architecture. The effort hasn't been an easy one for Craig Barrett & Co. Dozens of high-tech companies, venture firms and business conglomerates are flooding the market with venture money in the States. Some are even forming "keiretsus" that share business resources among start-up companies. |
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The Register Files |
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Via admits it's in talks to buy S3 chip unitBy Tony Smith April 4, 2000 |
Taiwan's Via Technologies has confirmed it is talking to S3 with a view to buying the graphics-to-gadgets company's 3D processor operation, according to Taiwanese business paper the Commercial Times (CT).
Via emerged as the front-runner in the race to buy S3's chip business, nosing ahead of the favourite, Nvidia. Hints that Via was talking to S3 began to appear earlier this year, but little more was heard until S3 last week confessed it was talking to one or more third-parties. |
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| April 4, 2000 | ||
The Software Side of CrusoeBy Alexander Wolfe April 3, 2000 |
With considerable ballyhoo, Transmeta has finally introduced its new processor family. Here's a take on what it will mean to software developers.
After five long years in a highly secretive development cycle, Transmeta Corp. finally came out of the closet with its launch offerings this past January-two embedded processors dubbed the TM3120 and the TM5400. The chips are the first of a family of very-long-instruction-word (VLIW) processors called Crusoe. For software developers, the salient fact is that Transmeta is positioning Crusoe as "the first family of software-based microprocessors." What does that mean in terms of writing code to run on Crusoe? Unfortunately, Transmeta has been somewhat hazy in providing answers to that question-especially since they are declining to release the Crusoe instruction set. |
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The Register Files |
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Leak! Intel desktop plans slip out... and slipBy Mike Magee April 3, 2000 |
Chip giant Intel is ready to release a spate of chipset products in Q2 and Q3 of this year, but sources within the firm have revealed that some of the introductions have already slipped on internal banana skins.
Sources working for Intel Europe showed The Register its desktop product roadmap up until the end of this year, but there are already problems with some of Intel's offerings. In this quarter, Q2, Intel is set to release a number of products including Lockport, Easton, Wichita, Yampai and Baton Rouge. |
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More leaks: Intel readies Itanium Lion projectBy Mike Magee April 3, 2000 |
One of the first Itanium systems to arrive in quarter three of this year will be a four-way own-brand system codenamed Lion, The Register can reveal.
The system, which appears on internal Intel roadmaps we saw last week, will use the firm's own chipset, which supports, like many of the other server boards it is introducing, double data rate (DDR) memory using ServerWorks (formerly Reliance) chipsets. |
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Tom's Hardware gives Rambus fresh kickingBy Mike Magee April 3, 2000 |
A fresh piece at Tom's Hardware Guide has taken a critical look at Morgan Stanley's report on the Rambus memory platform.
Van Smith reviews a Morgan Stanley document which said the share price would - ought - to reach $500, and which we managed to see a week or two back. According to Van, the positive report (which incidentally saw the RMBS share price do one of its swoop and soar tricks that it's now notorious for), has more than its share of smoke and mirrors. |
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| April 3, 2000 | ||
Playstation 3 - AMD 2GHz CPU running LinuxApril 1, 2000 |
Tokyo games show reveals that AMD and Sony have teamed up with Linux to kill off Microsoft's X-Box
Reports from the Tokyo Games Show, suggest that the Sony's next generation console (code name AP1 -- or PlayStation3) will be based on a 2GHz version of AMD's Athlon processor, running on a specially developed gamers version of Linux. |
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Intel eyes life after 1GHzBy John G. Spooner April 1, 2000 |
The chip wars are far from over, as Intel looks to exploit
processor 'headroom' to crank up Pentium III performance.
Intel, the world's leading chip manufacturer, is evaluating its options for introducing Pentium III chips running faster than 1GHz in the second half of this year. |
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The Register Files |
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Dell bells toll for AMD - ForbesBy Drew Cullen April 3, 2000 |
AMD is negotiating to sell 100,000 Spitfire chips to Dell, the last Intel-only assembler in town, Forbes says. These are to be used for cheapo desktops, according to an unnamed source, cited by the magazine.
Certainly there are too many of the blighters to explain away as engineering samples. And who knows, the deal could even come off. But AMD isn’t counting its chickens just yet – it wants confirmation in writing before it notches up a sale, Forbes reveals. |
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S3 Sweepstake: Via edges into the leadBy Tony Smith March 31, 2000 |
S3's suitor for its 3D graphics chip business is Via, according to a source "close to the talks" cited by Electronic Buyer's News.
Neither S3 nor Via have confirmed the claim, but, as we said yesterday, Via remains one of the four most likely buyers - the rest being Nvidia, ATI and Intel - primarily because it has already mooted buying S3, earlier this year. |
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