x86 Headline NewsFor the week of October 26, 1998 |
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x86 Weekly News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of October 26, 1998 |
Older News |
October 30, 1998 | ||
Notebooks: AMD Inside, Part TwoBy Rex Farrance October 29, 1998 |
Second notebook we've seen with a
300-MHz AMD K6-2 desktop CPU doesn't match a Pentium
II-300--but it is a good deal for the money. In our current November 1998 issue of PC World we looked at UMax's ActionBook 330T, the company's new K6-2-300 Notebook, which was the first to use a 300-MHz Advanced Micro Devices K6-2 processor (see "AMD Inside" link at right). AMD is planning to release a mobile version of its K6-2 in the first quarter of next year. But meanwhile, some notebook vendors are trying to leverage the existing AMD K6-2 desktop CPU to give Intel some competition in the notebooks arena. |
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Intel seems to be developing cunning MMX3 channel planBy Mike Magee October 29, 1998 |
A senior Intel executive would tonight
neither confirm nor deny that his company was changing
its channel strategy and selling 370-pin Celerons
complete with motherboard and other integrated features. But Intel has to do something to recover the situation, given that AMD has wooed its distributor channel tactically and strategically. Mike Aymar, director of Intel US' platform operation and who heads up the Katmai microprocessor family, did, however, say that his company was actively wooing the channel. |
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Updated: Intel to junk current Celeron strategy in two week's timeBy Mike Magee October 29, 1998 |
A senior executive from the Intel
Corporation said it will re-vamp its entire Celeron
roadmap in two weeks time. OEMs will be the first to know full details of the changes, he said. Mike Aymar, VP and director of Intel's Platform Launch Operation, on a fleeting visit to the UK, said that Intel had realised that competitors, such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), had made inroads into its market share. |
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October 29, 1998 | ||
Homer Simpson gets Intel gigBy Michael Kanellos October 28, 1998 |
Homer Simpson, doughnut-eating father
figure on the television show The Simpsons, will become a
spokesman for Intel. America's favorite beer-drinking cartoon character will be at the center of a new television ad that will tout the performance of the Pentium II processor. In the ad, titled "Homer's Smarter Brain," Homer's brain will be replaced by a Pentium II processor. As a result of the transplant, Homer will become a college professor. Currently, Homer works as a low-level nuclear technician. |
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Targets
low-end PCs with mP6 superscalar processor --
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Nearly five years in the making, Rise
Technology Co.'s X86 architecture is expected to be in
full production within weeks. Chief executive officer David T. Lin, in introducing the mP6 superscalar processor, outlined how Rise plans to tackle the relatively young "base PC" market for sub-$1,000 desktops and notebooks. That market didn't exist when Rise started work on its processor in 1993. But the company's original plans-to create a superscalar architecture tailored to multimedia applications and low power consumption-haven't changed. Fortunately for Rise, such features are coming in vogue for cheaper PCs, said Joe Salvador, the company's senior product manager. |
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October 28, 1998 | ||
Picture of IA-64 clearsBy Michael Slater October 26, 1998 |
With Intel's recent disclosures about
IA-64, a clearer picture is emerging of just how
important IA-64 will be, to whom and when. Intel has acknowledged that a chip code-named Foster, which is a server version of the next-generation X86 core (code-named Willamette), will debut about six months after Merced and offer comparable performance on 32-bit applications-even when the code running on Merced is compiled for the native IA-64 architecture. Merced will have a performance edge only for applications, such as large databases, that benefit from 64-bit addressing. |
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Intel spreads CPU tentaclesBy Alexander Wolfe October 26, 1998 |
Is Intel Corp.'s processor road map too
much of a good thing? From evidence presented at the
recent Microprocessor Forum, the company's battle plan
for the next decade entails fragmenting its architectures
into a dizzying array of niche CPUs. Indeed, the old adage that you can't tell the players without a scorecard is an apt description of the coming lineup. |
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ST targets non-PC applications with new sub-$100 SOCBy Richard Richtmyer October 27, 1998 |
Laying down a new industry threshold for
price and performance, STMicroelectronics Inc.,
Lexington, Mass., has locked in on the growing market for
embedded, integrated-system processors with its STPC
Industrial system-on-a-chip. Costing less than $40, the 133-MHz device shreds the $100 price tag of system-on-a-chip rival National Semiconductor Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., which is pitching its faster MediaPC processor as the engine for a sub-$500 consumer PC. |
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AMD promotes Raza, PreviteBy Michael Kanellos October 27, 1998 |
Atiq Raza, who many believe will be the
next CEO at Advanced Micro Devices, was appointed to the
new post of co-chief operating officer at the company,
while Rich Previte, the current COO and president, has
been slated to take over as vice chairman. The executive shift will likely be seen as good news among investors and analysts. Raza, who is AMD's chief technical officer, is widely regarded as one of the key players who helped turn the company |
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Notebook makers wrestle with pinouts, heat dissipationBy Mark Carroll October 27, 1998 |
Notebook-computer makers in Taiwan are
facing a broad range of design challenges as they
struggle to engineer machines for three different CPU
pinouts and to reign in heat and noise problems. The situation will only get tougher next year, when manufacturers will wrestle with an ever-expanding array of processor housings and electrical interfaces while facing down the sub-$1,000 notebook. "Last year, Intel told us not bother too much with the minicartridge format," said a marketing manager for one midlevel Taiwanese notebook maker. "Intel said the minicartridge wouldn't be that popular. It turned out to be very popular, and we were left behind scrambling." |
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October 27, 1998 | ||
Intel Quietly Broadens Katmai Supportby James Niccolai and Terho Uimonen October 26, 1998 |
Software vendors work away on the
next-generation CPU, which promises to make many
multimedia programs far handier. Intel has quietly embarked on an ambitious campaign aimed at enticing software vendors to unleash new compelling applications in tandem with the Katmai processor launch early next year. For users, the campaign could help bring voice and 3D software applications into the mainstream, take PC games to a new level of realism, and transform the Internet into a rich 3D experience with tantalizing commerce sites where users can interact with goods before they buy them, analysts and industry sources said. |
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Bug Fix Opens Door For Four-Way ServersBy Andy Patrizio October 26, 1998 |
Intel has finally fixed bugs in its
Pentium II Xeon line that delayed the appearance of
four-way servers using the 450-MHz Xeon, letting original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) crank up their own
production plans. The bugs first surfaced shortly after the Xeon line was introduced last June and occurred only in the 450-MHz Xeon chip when used in a four-way server configuration. The four chips were unable to communicate properly, causing freeze-ups, and error-correction code for memory didn't work properly. |
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A Year Ago: AMD plans to beat Intel's best in '98By Martin Veitch October 27, 1998 |
AMD believes it will be the engine for
the fastest X86-based PCs by the end of next year. The Californian chip maker has an ambitious roadmap that it believes will make it a clear performance leader and differentiate its products from Intel. Particular targets are putting graphics handling functionality on chip and making chips for mobile PCs. Moreover, it plans to achieve that lofty goal without moving away from the tried and trusted Socket 7 architecture. |
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IBM Launches Unix Merced ProjectBy Stuart Glascock October 26, 1998 |
IBM, along with an aggregation of
Unix-savvy partners, is building another flavor of the
Unix operating system with the goal of building the
leading Unix product for the Intel architecture. Hoping to generate business for ISVs, OEMs, and VARs, IBM is driving development of a Unix OS for Intel's IA-64 using IBM's AIX OS with technology from SCO's UnixWare and Sequent Computer Systems' PTX. |
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IBM teams with SCO, Intel on 64-bit UnixBy Nancy Weil October 26, 1998 |
IBM is undertaking a major project with
Intel, SCO, and Sequent that includes developing a
version of the Unix operating system for Intel's upcoming
64-bit processor architecture. The initiative, dubbed Project Monterey, will lead to three new versions of Unix, executives from the companies said at a press conference Monday. One version -- a flavor of SCO's UnixWare for 32-bit processors from IBM and Intel -- incorporates IBM middleware and is available now. Future releases of this version will add IBM's AIX operating system technology. |
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Intel invests in technology to track stolen PCsBy John Geralds October 26, 1998 |
Intel has invested in Absolute Software,
which owns tracking software to locate lost or stolen
PCs. Absolute also received equity investments of undisclosed size from two venture capital firms. In addition, it has shifted its corporate headquarters from Vancouver, Canada to outside Seattle, Washington and will expand its sales and customer support team by establishing new regional offices in the US. |
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Chip aimed at Net appliancesBy Bloomberg News October 26, 1998 |
STMicroelectronics has unveiled a single
chip to operate network appliances, such as handheld
computers, game consoles, and Internet phones, to replace
the more expensive sets of up to six chips now needed. The processor, called the STPC Industrial, will cost less than $40, about a third cheaper than competing products now being sold. It will help reduce the price of low-cost PC and other products, boosting their market potential. |
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Intel touts India investmentsBy Reuters October 26, 1998 |
Intel chief executive Craig Barrett said
today that he sees great potential for venture-capital
businesses in India. "We have been operating in India now for ten years, and I think the best opportunity for direct investment is perhaps not...manufacturing plants or a designing facility," Barrett told reporters here. "We intend to make investments in small steps on a venture capital basis." |
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October 26, 1998 | ||
ST claims sub-$100 chip breakthroughBy Mike Magee October 26, 1998 |
ST Microelectronics said it has produced
an integrated system on a chip which will allow
industrial PCs to be built for less than $100. But that begs the question why end users should be denied the benefits of such a system. The announcement will put ST head to head with NatSemi-Cyrix, which has vowed to be a leader in the integrated chip market. |
See Today's Related Stories |
Why Intel put money into MicronBy Jack Robertson October 26, 1998 |
Intel Corp.'s $500 million investment in
Micron Technology Inc. is prompting a fair amount of
armchair quarterbacking, as observers explore the range
of market dynamics that such a large cash infusion could
unleash. The investment, which grants Intel the rights to 6% of Micron's stock, is overtly directed at winning Micron's support of Direct Rambus DRAM, an emerging architecture that Intel is positioning to serve the high-end PC market next year. A Rambus licensee for some time, Micron nevertheless had kept its Direct RDRAM development program on a slow track. Because the technology is |
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64-bit battle lines: Alpha, Merced milestonesOctober 26, 1998 |
No text available | |
286 chip alive and kickingBy Mike Magee October 23, 1998 |
Supplies of the now obsolecent 286 part
are being snapped up by large companies eager to use it
in PCs, it has emerged. Earlier this week, a source working for French memory company Dane-Elec told The Register that high street company Marks & Spencer was looking to upgrade 1,000 286 PCs. Intel does not manufacture 286s, any more, even for the embedded market but there is a company which will sell the parts. |
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Intel to forge PC systems path for 1999By Andy Santoni October 26, 1998 |
At Comdex in Las Vegas in November,
Intel will let PC vendors show off systems, in public and
behind closed doors, that use more than a dozen
processors the company will introduce during the next six
months. With 11 new chips planned on being shown privately to key customers, Intel is laying the groundwork for an ever-increasing variety of systems that PC vendors will roll out in the next year. On the show floor at Comdex, server makers will offer "technology demos" of systems that use the Profusion core-logic chip set and eight 450-MHz Pentium II Xeon processors, with 2MB of Level 2 (L2) cache memory, one Intel executive said. |
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Intel price cuts boost PII over CeleronBy John Lettice October 26, 1998 |
As predicted here last week (Intel, AMD
and Cyrix to feature in price cut blizzard) the Intel
price cuts implemented today push higher performance
Pentium II chips further into the mass market, and
indicate a certain de-emphasis on Celeron. Several lower
speed chips are no more, and although there is still some
price advantage for Celeron, the gap between the 'Basic
PC' line and PII has narrowed. Intel, which has seen PII-based machines obstinately succeed in price-sensitive markets while Celeron's performance has been somewhat less glorious, takes it on the chin by explaining: "Continued strong acceptance of Pentium II processors enables Intel to strongly ramp these products into higher volume price points." Loosely translated, this means the manufacturers and the market have decided they want PII rather than Celeron, so Intel has decided to give in a little. |
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Intel Inside(rs) to Sell SharesBy Jennifer Sullivan October 23, 1998 |
Intel CEO Craig Barrett plans to sell as
much as a third of his stockholding in the computer
chipmaker, raising flags among some analysts. Barrett filed plans on 16 October with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell as many as 700,000 shares, according to documents released Monday. The shares would be worth about US$61.08 million, based on Friday's closing stock price of $87.25. |
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Today's Related Stories | ||
ST rolls out its latest PC-on-chip for industrial, embedded applicationsOctober 26, 1998 |
In the race to supply "single-chip
PCs," ST Microelectronics here today officially
rolled out an x86-based integrated circuit aimed at
industrial and embedded computing applications. The chip
integrates an enhanced 486 processor core with a number
of other PC functions, which will enable OEMs to build a
system for less than $100, according to ST. The STPC Industrial replaces the need for up to six other ICs in making a PC-compatible system. It is aimed at a range of applications, such as information kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, Internet-surfing boxes, "thin client" terminals, security systems and industrial PCs, said the company, which is also offering x86-based chips targeted at other market niches. |