x86 Headline NewsFor the week of August 3, 1998 |
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x86 Weekly News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of August 3, 1998 |
Older News |
August 7, 1998 | ||
Is Merced doomed?By Michael Kanellos August 6, 1998 |
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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Another delay in store for Intel's XeonBy Carmen Nobel August 6, 1998 |
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 |
Cyrix serves Jalapeno to burn IntelBy Ron Wilson August 7, 1998 |
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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Intel's copper chip plans emergeBy Michael Kanellos August 6, 1998 |
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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Intel flash memory suit dismissedBy Reuters August 6, 1998 |
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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News Alert: Court Dismisses Intel Suit Against SSTAugust 6, 1998 |
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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Survey says 'Intel Inside' increasingly doesn't matter to businessesBy Rebecca Sykes August 6, 1998 |
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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Chip sector primed for upsideBy Corey Grice August 6, 1998 |
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 | ||
Merced miredBy Michael Kanellos August 6, 1998 |
Touted as a major milestone for Intel
and the computer industry in general, Merced, the
companys 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 |
What's
Wrong With Merced
|
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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'Intel
Inside' loses momentum to rivals
|
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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Survey: Firms think twice on IntelBy Stephanie Miles August 5, 1998 |
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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PC
Processor Market Stratifies
|
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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Intel Discounts $500 Million Patent SuitBy Will Wade August 5, 1998 |
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
tests cast doubt on IBM chip 'breakthrough'
|
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 |
Intel
rubbishes Hyundai fab deal claims
|
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 |
August 5, 1998 | ||
Study: Intel dominance ebbingBy Charles Cooper August 4, 1998 |
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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Intel Showcases Mobile System ManagementBy Jennifer Hagendorf August 4, 1998 |
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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300-MHz Pentium II notebooks on tapBy Michael Kanellos August 4, 1998 |
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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Intel, Hyundai in venture talksBy Reuters August 4, 1998 |
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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Intel Not Confirming Rescue Of Hyundai PlantBy Andrew Craig August 5, 1998 |
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 | ||
Intel hit with $500 million patent lawsuitBy Alexander Wolfe August 3, 1998 |
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 |
IBM takes SOI technology to marketBy David Lammers August 3, 1998 |
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 yearsfaster than competitors such as Intel Corp. |
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IBM unveils performance-boosting chip technologyBy Ed Scannell August 3, 1998 |
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 | ||
Intel hit by $500 million lawsuitBy Michael Kanellos August 3, 1998 |
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). |
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Intel
hit by $500 million patent suit
|
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. |
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August 3, 1998 | ||
IDT-Centaur is hurtingAugust 3, 1998 |
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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Intel, Compaq gird for 64-bit battleBy Alexander Wolfe August 3, 1998 |
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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IBM touts new chip technologyBy Reuters July 31, 1998 |
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 |
Analysis:
370-pin Socket offers cheap manufacturing for Intel
|
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 Intels 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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Copper, copper everywhereAugust 3, 1998 |
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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Intel Roadmap Shows Diverse Menu Of Chip OptionsBy Mark Hachman July 31, 1998 |
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 companys latest confidential road map, which was obtained from an OEM customer. |
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Intel
plans 450MHz systems this month
|
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. |
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Intel Speeds Up Graphics PaceBy Mark Hachman July 31, 1998 |
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. Intels competitors ship 1 to 2 major graphics products per year. | |
Today's Related Stories | ||
IBM cracks SOI technology for commercial IC useAugust 3, 1998 |
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. |
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IBM Uses Niche Technology To Boost Chip PerformanceBy Crista Souza August 3, 1998 |
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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IBM
Micro unveils another go-faster
|
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. |