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| Top Stories for March 21, 2001 (details below) | |
| C/Net | Intel releases last Pentium III-based Xeon |
| EBN | Intel raises eyebrows with PC133 forecast |
| Semiconductor Business News | Taiwan's Acer Labs rolls out new DDR SDRAM chip set for Intel's Pentiun III processors |
| C/Net | Intel CEO still hopes for PC rebound |
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The Register Files |
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| The Register | Intel pressure mounts on AMD, Via |
| The Register | AMD PowerNow! wins EPA gong |
| The Register | Intel's McKinley gets Rambus support |
| The Register | ALi ships Tualatin-supporting chipset |
| The Register | SiS touts transition DIMMs |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of March 18, 2001 |
Older News |
| March 21, 2001 | |
Intel releases last Pentium III-based XeonBy Michael Kanellos March 20, 2001 |
Intel on Tuesday released a 900-MHz Xeon processor for servers, the last member of the chip family that will be based on the Pentium III design.
The new chip contains a 2MB secondary cache, a reservoir of memory close to the processor for quick data access. Most Xeon and Pentium chips contain a secondary cache of only 256KB. The larger cache boosts performance and permits computer makers to incorporate the chip in four- and eight-processor servers that will compete against servers from Sun Microsystems and Compaq Computer's AlphaServer line. Sun will release new servers Wednesday at an event in New York. |
Intel raises eyebrows with PC133 forecastBy Jack Robertson March 20, 2001 |
What's this? Intel is telling us its Brookdale chipset supporting PC133 SDRAM will account for one-third of all Pentium 4 chipset sales this year?
Pete MacWilliams, Intel Fellow and the company's memory road-map specialist, twice made the projection at the recent Intel Developer Forum. Brookdale doesn't even come on the market until the third quarter of 2001. Now, I never was very good at math, but even I know that means there will have to be a huge burst of Brookdale sales at the end of the year in order to reach a full year's 33% quotient. |
Taiwan's Acer Labs rolls out new DDR SDRAM chip set for Intel's Pentiun III processorsMarch 19, 2001 |
Taiwan's Acer Laboratories Inc. (ALi) here today unveiled the world's first double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM chipset for notebook and desktop PCs based Intel Corp.'s Pentium III microprocessors.
The new chip set, dubbed the Aladdin Pro 5T, features a DDR SDRAM memory controller and a 100/133-MHz front-side bus. It also support 4X AGP and 6 PCI master slots. |
Intel CEO still hopes for PC reboundBy Reuters March 20, 2001 |
Craig Barrett, chief executive of chipmaker Intel, said Tuesday he hopes for a recovery in demand for personal computers in the second half of 2001, despite the current major slump in the industry.
The European market is "OK" and, as expected, the United States was the company's "primary weak point," Barrett said in an interview at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association conference here. |
The Register Files |
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Intel pressure mounts on AMD, ViaBy Mike Magee March 20, 2001 |
Wait for one rumour patiently for months and six or seven come along all at once.
But financial pressures are beginning to cause the rumour mills in the x86 microprocessor business to turn much, much faster than the windmills in Cervantes' Don Quixote. And, although these are rumours, we stress, all of them emanated from sources close to the biggest x86 or x86 compatible firms currently at the heart of the biz - that is to say Intel, AMD, and Via. All our deep throats and contacts are dishing the dirt. |
AMD PowerNow! wins EPA gongBy Tony Smith March 19, 2001 |
AMD has been patted on the back by the US Environmental Protection Agency for its efforts to promote energy-saving technologies.
In particular, the EPA likes AMD's PowerNow! power-preservation system, due to debut real soon now in Chimpzilla's Palomino-based Mobile Athlon, and its AMD-760 chipset, which hooks the CPU into the rest of the system. |
Intel's McKinley gets Rambus supportBy Mike Magee March 19, 2001 |
Sources close to Intel's plans in Israel told The Register today that the 870 chipset which will support the IA-64 McKinley platform, will have a Rambus interface.
That will come as a boost for the memory IP firm, which last week saw its share price plummet as a result of pre-trial decisions made in a Virginian court. According to the sources, the Dell Corporation is already committed to producing a McKinley board using the Rambus interface, and, just in case customers have any doubt about the performance of RDRAM, the chipset will also support a Rambus to DDR translator. |
ALi ships Tualatin-supporting chipsetBy Tony Smith March 19, 2001 |
Acer Labs (ALi) today took the wraps off what it reckons in the world's first Pentium III chipset capable of supporting both SDRAM and DDR memory.
Actually that's probably not a first, so ALi qualifies the claim by saying it's the first to do the SDR/DDR thing and support "future Pentium III" processor's - the 0.13 micron Tualatin, in other words - and come in notebook and desktop configurations. |
SiS touts transition DIMMsBy Tony Smith March 19, 2001 |
Taiwan's Silicon Integrated Systems has launched its SDRAM-to-DDR transition memory scheme, designed to work with the Tualatin-supporting SiS635T chipset and its Athlon equivalent, the SiS735.
The memory technology, SDR/DDR Share Mode, is based on 184-pin DIMMs capable of holding PC-133 SDRAM or DDR memory. The DDR DIMM spec. is based on a 184-pin module. Regular SDRAM uses 168-pin modules. |
| March 19, 2001 | |
Rambus trial delayed until AprilBy Michael Kanellos March 16, 2001 |
A U.S. District judge has delayed Rambus' trial against Infineon until April to permit further discovery in the case.
On Friday, Judge Robert Payne ordered that the trial between the two memory companies be rescheduled for April 10, so that chip designer Rambus can conduct further discovery, according to a statement from the company. Rambus claims the new information will contradict the depositions of Infineon executives on core issues in the case. The trial was supposed to start next week. |
Judge rules defeating blow on Rambus bus architectureBy Dave Lammers and Will Wade March 16, 2001 |
Rambus Inc. has taken a serious blow in its attempt to pursue patent infringement royalties from SDRAM vendors. In a pre-trial ruling, a judge has ruled that the Rambus bus architecture is new and different from that used in SDRAM. While the company still plans to proceed to trial, the decision seems to significantly undercut the strength of its case. In a separate development, just days before the trial was scheduled to begin, the court granted a postponement until next month.
Rambus has been asking for royalties on four key patents granted late in 1999. One of the main patents, No. 5,915,105, which lists Rambus co-founders Michael Farmwald and Mark Horowitz as the inventors, concerns integrated circuit I/O over a high-performance bus interface. |
Judge denies Rambus motion to bar RICO testimonyBy Jack Robertson March 16, 2001 |
Federal Judge Robert Payne has denied a Rambus Inc. motion to bar testimony about alleged Rambus violations of the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) law during the company's trial with Infineon Corp., scheduled to begin next week.
The judge made no assessment on the merits of the RICO charge, only that it can be raised in court. In fact, court transcripts of earlier pretrial hearings in the case show Judge Payne posing his own questions on the strength of the RICO argument. |
Intel delays construction of a chip design center in AustinMarch 16, 2001 |
In its latest setback, Intel Corp. here announced that it has "de-accelerated" its plans to build a chip design center in Austin, Texas.
The $124 million chip design center was originally supposed to be completed by the end of this year, according to a spokesman for Intel in Santa Clara, Calif. The company will continue to build the center, but it has no idea when the project will be completed. "[Intel] is going to finish the construction," the spokesman said. "We are just de-accelerating the construction." |
Intel slows another fab expansionBy Jack Robertson March 16, 2001 |
Intel Corp. Friday confirmed that the chip market slowdown has claimed its second fab victim in a week, as a $500 million module 4 expansion at the firm's Hudson, Mass., complex has been suspended for an indefinite time.
This comes only days after Intel postponed its 300-mm wafer fab in Ireland for a year until late 2003. An Intel spokesman said the separate $1 billion upgrade of two existing modules at the Hudson fab continues on schedule. |
Gates to shed more light on Microsoft's TabletPCBy Peter Galli March 16, 2001 |
Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates will unveil further details about one of his favorite projects, the TabletPC, when he addresses delegates at the upcoming Windows Hardware Engineering conference.
Sources close to the company said Gates will offer considerable detail on his plans for the TabletPC, and how it slots into Microsoft's vision going forward, in his March 26 keynote address at the Anaheim, Calif., conference, which looks at the future of computing. |
The Register Files |
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Intel P4 strategy dented by Rambus rulingBy Mike Magee March 18, 2001 |
An Intel advertising campaign worth over $300 million, bunches of PC manufacturers committed to Intel roadmaps, and giant semiconductor manufacturer companies, all face further turmoil through the year because of arcane arguments about electronics to be decided in a patent case at a court in Richmond, Virginia next month.
Judge Robert E. Payne, in a pre-trial court ruling made last Friday in a case between small intellectual property (IP) company Rambus Inc (ticker: RMBS) and Siemens spin-off Infineon, limited the extent to which the former could argue patents it took out on certain types of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), used in PCs and other devices, were breached. |
Judge allows Rambus racketeering allegationsBy Mike Magee March 16, 2001 |
There was painful news for Rambus shareholders yesterday after the judge in the case said Infineon lawyers could introduce allegations of criminal activity in an up-and-coming jury trial that originally focused on alleged patent infringements.
Dow Jones, picking up on earlier stories from The Register and Electronic News , said Judge Robert E. Payne had decided allegations of criminal misconduct could be discussed, despite an attempt by Rambus to prevent that discussion. |
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