x86 Headline NewsFor the week of March 30, 1998 |
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Week of March 30, 1998 |
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Headlines April 3, 1998 | ||
IDT Redesigns Future WinChip MicroprocessorBy Mark Hachman April 2, 1998 |
Integrated Device Technology Inc.'s Centaur
Technology division has decided to redesign its
forthcoming C6-2L Intel-compatible microprocessor to
minimize the die size and increase performance. Like the forthcoming AMD K6+3D microprocessor, the WinChip C6-2L was expected to integrate 128 kilobytes of level 2 cache. Now, the chip's designers say they will replace an integrated level 2 cache with a larger 128 Kbyte on-chip Level 1 cache. The C6-2L will double the cache over the previous C6+ microprocessor, resulting in increased performance. The C6-2L chip is scheduled for release at the end of 1998, IDT executives said. |
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Intel stock gets cautious ratingBy Jeff Pelline April 2, 1998 |
In another reminder that Intel's (INTC) Craig Barrett
faces a tough challenge when he succeeds Andy Grove as
the chip giant's chief executive next month, a Wall
Street analyst today initiated coverage of the company's
stock with a more cautious rating. In assigning the "market performer" rating, Terry Ragsdale, an analyst with J.P. Morgan, reiterated many of the concerns that analysts have been expressing about Intel. (Intel is an investor in CNET: The Computer Network, publisher of NEWS.COM.) |
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Price Powers Launch Of Pentium II ChipBy Mark Hachman April 2, 1998 |
A combination of savvy design and an attractive
pricing strategy appear to have offset initial concerns
about the power consumption of Intel Corp.'s mobile
Pentium II. Early reports characterized the chip as power hungry, but OEMs said they found only a slight decrease in battery life in products built around the device. Any increase in power consumption, they said, had been balanced by updated power management software, a redesigned motherboard, or both. |
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Kulicke & Soffa foresees lossBy Reuters April 3, 1998 |
Kulicke & Soffa Industries (KLIC) said late
yesterday that a major customer, possibly Intel, had
canceled an order, and the company expected to report a
net loss for its quarter ending in June instead of the profit Wall Street had expected. The latest consensus among Wall Street analysts was for the company to earn 36 cents per share in the June quarter, according to First Call, which collects brokers' estimates. |
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Intel's Malaysia plans on trackBy Reuters April 2, 1998 |
Newly named Intel(INTC) CEO Craig Barrett said today
that the chip giant's plans to invest up to $500 million
at three facilities in Malaysia remain unchanged despite
the regional economic crisis. Barrett said Intel was committed to participating in Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor, a high-technology zone outside the capital Kuala Lumpur, but had not yet finalized its plans. |
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Headlines April 2, 1998 | ||
Q&A: Intel's New CEO, Craig BarrettBy Kelly Spang April 1, 1998 |
Editor's note: The industry looked on with great interest as Andrew Grove, Intel's co-founder, chairman, and CEO resigned last week. CRN section editor Kelly Spang spoke with Craig Barrett, Intel's chief operating officer, just three weeks prior to his being named Grove's replacement. As CEO, Barrett will lead the chip giant through its newest move of processor segmentation. | |
Craig Barrett is not the answerBy Alexander Wolfe March 27, 1998 |
Sometimes the true measure of a leader lies not in
how he runs the race but in how he departs. Here, Lou
Gehrig is the defining example of grace in the face of
the setting sun. On the flip side, there are lots of
folks who don't know when it's time to throw in the
towel. Mike Jagger of the Rolling Stones comes
immediately to mind. The case of Intel's Andy Grove fits into neither of these neat categories. Grove announced on March 26 that he will turn over his post as chief executive officer to Craig Barrett, effective May 20. Grove will retain his job as chairman. Barrett, 58, is being promoted from his current position as president and chief operating officer. |
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Can
Multiprocessing Go Mainstream?
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Ever since the creation of the microprocessor, there has been a natural fascination with the prospect of boosting performance by using more than one processor in a system. Today, multiprocessor (MP) systems have reached the mainstream of the server market, but they remain nearly nonexistent in the desktop PC market. | |
x86
Market Approaching Overcapacity
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Due to severe overcapacity in the DRAM market, prices have fallen by nearly 90% in the past two years. Could such a calamity happen in the x86 microprocessor market? With Intel, AMD, and National all aggressively building fab capacity over the next few years, the x86 market could become oversupplied in the near future. | |
Mobile Pentium II due to debutBy Margaret Kane April 2, 1998 |
Notebook makers are gearing up for today's formal
launch of a mobile version of Intel Corp.'s (INTC)
Pentium II processor, code-named Tillamook. Among companies readying announcements are Gateway 2000 Inc. (GTW), Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ), Dell Computer Corp. (DELL), Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HWP), Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. and Acer America Corp. |
Related Stories |
Intel begins Mobile Pentium II rollout in TaiwanBy Terho Uimonen April 2, 1998 |
In advance of its U.S. launch, Intel here Thursday
formally introduced the first mobile versions of its
high-end Pentium II processor family targeted at notebook
PCs, running at 233 MHz and 266 MHz. The chip giant later this quarter will also release mobile Pentium II versions in its proprietary Intel Mobile Module (IMM) format with support for accelerated graphics port (AGP) signals, the company said. Sources close to Intel said AGP support will likely be introduced with the forthcoming 300-MHz version of the processor series. |
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300-mm transition still faces lack of tools, software issuesBy J. Robert Lineback April 1, 1998 |
While chip makers are showing some willingness again to resume their migration to 300-mm wafers, the lack of early prototype tools has become a major roadblock for pilot line projects, which are needed to integrate process steps and debug fab automation software, according to industry managers attending Semicon Europa here this week. | |
Headlines April 1, 1998 | ||
Media genuflect before Intel's royal-succession pageantBy Scott Rosenberg March 31, 1998 |
No one could claim real surprise at last week's announcement that Intel CEO Andy Grove would step down in favor of his No. 2 man and heir-apparent, Craig Barrett. This was no boardroom upset; Intel has always groomed its line of succession with the kind of rigorous long-range planning typically found only at places like Windsor Castle or the Vatican. | |
Mobile Pentium II questions raisedBy Michael Kanellos April 1, 1998 |
Intel (INTC) and most of the industry's major
notebook PC manufacturers will gather in Santa Clara,
California, tomorrow morning to showcase the first mobile
computers using the Pentium II processor. But behind the veneer of flashy new systems lurk questions about performance. The Pentium II processor, or at least the first generation of the chip, presents a design dilemma for notebook vendors, some analysts and notebook executives say. |
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Report: Celeron chip behind rivalsBy Reuters March 31, 1998 |
A new, much-anticipated chip developed by Intel
(INTC) aimed at the sub-$1,000 PC market is not as fast
running applications as its clone competitors, according
to tests performed by computer magazine PC World. The chip, called Celeron, is expected to be launched on April 15, but PC World said it obtained a preproduction PC with a Celeron chip running at a speed of 266 MHz. |
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AMD sees upside despite warningBy Suzanne Galante March 31, 1998 |
Despite warning earlier this month that its
first-quarter results would "decline
significantly," Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) stock
has been on a roll as analysts and investors look beyond
the current quarter and toward the revenue potential of
improved yields announced by the company today. AMD's stock gained more than 9 percent on the news, to 29-1/16, up 2-1/2 from yesterday's close of 26-9/16. Since the holidays, the chipmaker has seen its stock appreciate about 70 percent from trading in the high teens as of late December. |
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Intel struggling to revive growthBy Reuters March 31, 1998 |
Semiconductor giant Intel (INTC) is struggling to
revive growth after facing more than a year of stagnant
revenues, company president Craig Barrett said today. "The biggest issue that we face right now is getting back on the growth track," Barrett told a news conference here. "We have been flat in revenue for the past 15 to 18 months. We need to continue to focus on microprocessors and find new users and uses for personal computers. We also need to grow in other businesses in and around computers." |
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Intel challenged in low-cost arenaBy Michael Kanellos March 31, 1998 |
Despite production snags in 1997, Advanced Micro
Devices and Cyrix are engaging in ambitious product
strategies that will likely challenge Intel in the cheap
computing arena. Both companies will try to maintain performance parity with Intel's Pentium II processors while selling their chips for significantly less. |
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Fujitsu modules to cool Intel CPUs for notebook PCsBy Yoshiko HaraWith additional reporting by Rick Boyd-Merritt March 31, 1998 |
Fujitsu Ltd. has worked with Intel Corp. to come up with a way to deal with heat dissipation, a notoriously weak link in Intel's technology for mobile systems. As Intel prepares to roll out its next-generation notebook processors next week, Fujitsu will unveil a cooling module that satisfies the power-budget requirements of high-performance microprocessors for notebook systems. | |
Headlines March 31, 1998 | ||
Counterfeit Intel chips may be risingBy Michael Kanellos March 30, 1998 |
An imbalance between the price and
supply of Intel microprocessors is leading to a rise in
"remarked" chips with bogus speed ratings in
Europe and North America. Computer makers in the United States claim that there have been recent instances of chips sold as 200-MHz Pentium Pro processors were in fact 166-MHz Pentium Pros that had been repackaged and renumbered by unscrupulous chip brokers to look like their 200-MHz counterparts. The German magazine c't has reported on a rash of 266-MHz Pentium II chips being sold as 300-MHz versions in Germany. |
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Pokey Celeron DisappointsBy Staff Writer March 30, 1998 |
INTEL'S NEW CELERON CHIP, the low-end processor aimed at the sub-$1000 PC market, has failed to live up to even modest expectations in our PC WorldBench testing. In this exclusive report from our upcoming May issue, a 266-MHz Celeron test system performed significantly poorer on business applications than similarly configured systems from AMD and Cyrix. | |
Intel's Celeron-266: Great Price, But Weak PerformanceBy Bill Snyder March 30, 1998 |
You've probably noticed the
proliferation of astonishingly cheap yet capable PCs. But
have you also noticed that a surprising number of these
sub-$1000 systems don't sport the "Intel
Inside" logo? Intel hopes that will change beginning April 15, when the company introduces the Celeron, a stripped-down Pentium II-class chip aimed squarely at the fast-growing market for entry-level PCs. The good news: Continued competition at the high and low ends of the market will force manufacturers to slash prices and push performance further. The bad news: Celeron falls short of the mark. |
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AMD rises on new confidenceBy Reuters March 30, 1998 |
Shares of Advanced Micro Devices rose
today after getting a boost from two analysts who said
the chipmaker's manufacturing is improving. The signs of confidence came from analyst Eric Rothdeutsch of Volpe Brown Whelan and Dan Niles, a BancAmerica Robertson Stephens analyst and an occasional columnist for CNET's NEWS.COM. Both said AMD was getting better yields of its K6 processor, meaning that it is getting more good parts to ship to customers. |
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Where were they when Intel was making claims that could not be substantiated in the real world?. |
The article basically discusses the ambiguity of benchmarks (like ByteMarks) which Apple used for this test. Fine. But remember Intel was claiming that MMX made their processors 4 or 8 times faster or more? I do. | |
Intel challenged in low-cost arenaBy Michael Kanellos March 31, 1998 |
Despite production snags in 1997, both
Advanced Micro Devices and Cyrix are engaged in ambitious
product strategies this year that will likely challenge
Intel in the cheap computing space. Both companies will try to maintain performance parity with the Intel Pentium II processors in 1998 and, at the same time, sell their processors for significantly less. The two companies, along with Integrated Device Technologies are, in addition, making a concerted effort in graphics. All three are currently hammering out standards for an additional, common set of 3D instructions that will be incorporated into processors this year. |
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Intel postpones California buildingBy Brooke Crothers March 30, 1998 |
Intel (INTC) will delay construction of
an office building at its Folsom, California, site, as
the company adjusts to a more severe business climate
than previously anticipated. The central California site includes Intel's Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) components division, flash memory products division, and math co-processors and microprocessor upgrade products division, among other businesses. |
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Pentium II notebooks boost performance, cut battery lifeBy John G. Spooner March 30, 1998 |
Intel Corp.'s first Pentium II
processors for notebook PCs will offer better performance
but will place a real drag on battery power. Intel this week will introduce 233MHz and 266MHz Pentium II processors packaged on an MMO (Mobile Module) or on a cartridge including the CPU and 512KB of Level 2 cache, said officials at the Santa Clara, Calif., company. |
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Intel says main problem is reviving growthBy Sonali Verma March 31, 1998 |
Semiconductor giant Intel Corp is
struggling to revive growth after facing more than a year
of stagnant revenues, company president Craig Barrett
said on Tuesday. "The biggest issue that we face right now is getting back on the growth track," Barrett told a news conference. |
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Headlines March 30, 1998 | ||
Intel Japan Chairman Sees Small Market for CeleronBy Staff Writer March 26, 1998 |
Intel KK Chairman Ikuo Nishioka said the
company's new Celeron microprocessor for low-priced
personal computers might build up only a relatively small
market share. During a March 19 seminar in Tokyo for reporters on Intel's future product plans, Nishioka said Celeron could account for about 10 percent of the entire microprocessor market for PCs. |
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Japan cool to low-cost Intel chipBy Kurt Oeler March 27, 1998 |
Though it hasn't yet reached the market,
Intel's first chip to specifically target low-cost PCs,
the Celeron, will probably meet with a cool welcome in
Japan, mirroring its advance reception in the United
States. Celeron is unlikely to gain more than ten percent market share, Intel Japan chairman Ikuo Nishioka recently told a Tokyo seminar, business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported today. |
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Peripheral Gear Makers Pessimistic After Celeron DebutBy Staff Writer March 30, 1998 |
Makers of computer peripheral equipment
said that purchases of PCs are expected to be stagnant in
Taiwan, as uncertainties surround the Covington
microprocessor and the 440EX chip set, two parts of Intel
Corp.'s Celeron motherboard that is slated to appear
later this year. For this reason, suppliers say PC prices
are likely to continue sliding, and earnings of computer
companies may decline. Intel's Pentium II line has obtained a large share of the local market since the beginning of this year. |
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Analyst sees threats to IntelBy Brooke Crothers and Michael Kanellos March 27, 1998 |
One the chip industry's leading pundits
today said that Intel (INTC) faces a rash of threats
including emerging chip powerhouse IBM and the Federal
Trade Commission. Speaking at one of the computer industry's largest and most prestigious gatherings of engineers, the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, Michael Slater said that Intel will increasingly have to compete against IBM's chipmaking arm, which has become a major manufacturer of low-cost, Intel-compatible chips for Advanced Micro Devices, Integrated Device Technology (IDT), Cyrix, and possibly others. Slater is the founder of MicroDesign Resources and founder and editorial director of the Microprocessor Report. |
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AMD Gets Microsoft's BlessingBy Mark Hachman March 27, 1998 |
Microsoft Corp.'s annual Windows
Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Orlando,
Fla., proved to be an occasion for the software giant to
get in its two cents worth on several hardware
initiatives. Perhaps most significantly, Microsoft rescued microprocessor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices Inc. when it announced that its DirectX 6.0 software API would ship in July, rather than on some future undisclosed date, as originally planned. |
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Cyrix bets its future on integrated chipsBy Lisa DiCarlo March 30, 1998 |
Cyrix Corp. has seen the future of its
microprocessors, and it's integrated. The company will begin transforming its entire product line next year into a series of low-cost processors with varying levels of integration. The first chip to incorporate such integration will be the company's next-generation processor core, code-named Jalapeno. |
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Chip maker Cyrix may copy the Pentium II busBy Robert Lemos March 23, 1998 |
PC chip maker Cyrix Corp., a subsidiary
of chip giant National Semiconductor Corp. (NSM), may try
to reverse-engineer Intel Corp.'s proprietary bus design
to make Pentium II-compatible chips, said industry
insiders on Friday. "Now that Cyrix belongs to National, they are legally covered to do (the Pentium II bus)," said Jim Turley, a senior analyst with semiconductor market watcher MicroDesign Resources Inc. "Now they just have to make the chips." |
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PC's drivers ponder architectural overhaulBy Rick Boyd-Merritt and Anthony Cataldo March 30, 1998 |
Despite surging revenue for Microsoft Corp.'s products, executives of the company readily admitted at its annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference that the PC, in many respects, is a technological mess. While the confession was hardly surprising to the enginers gathered for WinHEC, public and private comments revealed nascent plans to overhaul the PC's 17-year-old hardware and software underpinnings. | |
WinHEC Mulls Intel's CompetitionBy Stuart Glascock Mar. 27, 1998 |
The closing session of Microsoft Corp.'s
seventh annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference
(WinHEC) this week was dominated by discussion about chip
giant Intel Corp., its emerging field of competitors, and
their implications across the computing spectrum. Intel's x86 competitors stand a good chance to build up to 20 percent to 30 percent combined market share. However, the biggest challenge facing those companies will be to increase profits, Michael Slater, principal analyst for MicroDesign Resources, Sebastopol, Calif., told the gathering of some 3,500 hardware engineers. "We do have a vibrant microprocessor market out there," Slater said in his talk today. |
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Pop quiz: Can you name the chip makers?By Mike Feibus March 23, 1998 |
Clear off your desk. I don't want to see
anything but a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. This
column is a pop quiz. I know you didn't prepare. Don't worry. This won't go on your permanent record. Here we go: Write down the names of all the X86 PC processor vendors you can think of. (I'm humming the "Jeopardy" jingle while you scribble.) Time's up. That means pencils down, people! Let's see how you did. |
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Intel Outlines Plans For Set-Top BoxesBy Gregory Quick March 27, 1998 |
An Intel executive discussed the chip
maker's set-top box efforts during his keynote address at
the Windows Hardware Engineering (WinHec) Conference in
Orlando, Fla., this week. Mike Aymar, Intel's vice president and general manager of its consumer products group, said Intel [profile] is developing three products for set-top users who also want some computing capabilities. Intel sees the family room as a PC growth area and a place where a great deal of experimentation will occur before any design becomes a standard, Aymar said. |