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Microprocessor
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| Top Stories for May 19, 2000 (details below) | |
| C/Net | Intel gathers memory makers to boost Rambus plans |
| Electronic Buyers' News | DRAM makers balk at Intel request to boost Rambus output |
| Semiconductor Business News | DRAM makers balk at Intel request to boost Rambus output |
| Electronic Business Asia | Intel i820 fiasco advances Rambus ramp-up |
| ZDNet News |
AMD's largest chip launch ever? Chip maker tipped to debut 10 new chips in June -- possibly on the same day. |
| The Register Files | |
| The Register | Human rights in China? Pah, says Intel |
| The Register | Intel misjudgements to slow PC growth |
| The Register | Transmeta Crusoe shrinks to 0.15 micron |
| The Register | Asus under fire over Intel recall |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of May 14, 2000 |
Older News |
| May 19, 2000 | ||
Intel gathers memory makers to boost Rambus plansBy Ian Fried and Stephen Shankland May 18, 2000 |
Intel held a closed-door meeting with memory makers in Arizona yesterday to discuss the status of controversial
Rambus-based memory.
The chip giant confirmed a meeting took place but would not comment on whether any new ground was broken. Intel, long an ardent proponent of Rambus' proprietary standard for next-generation memory, is counting on an increase in Rambus-based memory output to support the launch of its Willamette processor later this year. |
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DRAM makers balk at Intel request to boost Rambus outputBy Jack Robertson May 18, 2000 |
A meeting of leading DRAM vendors called by Intel Corp. Wednesday to drum up support for production of Direct Rambus DRAM broke up yesterday with no clear agreement between the parties, according to industry sources.
The meeting at Intel's Chandler, Ariz., campus, which was to have been a two-day affair, ended early when DRAM suppliers told Intel they would increase Direct RDRAM production levels only if their customers in the PC sector agree to a non-cancellation guarantee on each order placed. |
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DRAM makers balk at Intel request to boost Rambus outputBy Jack Robertson May 18, 2000 |
A meeting of leading DRAM vendors called by Intel Corp. Wednesday to drum up support for production of Direct Rambus DRAM broke up yesterday with no clear agreement between the parties, according to industry sources.
The meeting at Intel's Chandler, Ariz., campus, which was to have been a two-day affair, ended early when DRAM suppliers told Intel they would increase Direct RDRAM production levels only if their customers in the PC sector agree to a non-cancellation guarantee on each order placed. |
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Intel i820 fiasco advances Rambus ramp-upMay 18, 2000 |
Major performance issues, including system hangs and reboots, with PC motherboards equipped with both the Intel i820 chipset and MTH (Memory Translator Hub) — this combination is designed to support SDRAM rather than the more expensive RDRAM option — have given rise to the prospect of some one million defective boards having to be replaced with Rambus memory-equipped boards. In Korea, all indications are that the costly fiasco is leading chip makers to ramp-up Rambus output, Electronic Business Asia, an E-inSITE affiliate, reports. Samsung has announced it will ramp Rambus output by 50 percent, from a current two million units per month. By the end of the year, output could well be up to five million units a month. |
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AMD's largest chip launch ever?
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is planning what could be its largest processor launch ever.
The company could launch 10 new processors as soon as June 5, sources said. AMD (NYSE: AMD) has said it will launch its new Duron processor, code-named Spitfire, along with its forthcoming Athlon chip, code-named Thunderbird, in June. It now appears the chips will debut on the same day. The new chips target both the high-end and low-cost PC markets. The Thunderbird chips will raise the bar for top-end performance, whereas the Duron will offer AMD's first Athlon-based processor as a lower-cost alternative. |
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| May 18, 2000 | ||
Intel cajoles DRAM makers to spur Rambus chip productionBy Jack Robertson May 17, 2000 |
Intel Corp. has called what sources say is an emergency meeting to gauge the commitment of the industry's top DRAM suppliers to Direct Rambus DRAM memory production.
The two-day meeting, underway at Intel's Chandler, Ariz., campus, was called by high-level company executives, who are concerned that insufficient support for the new memory interface could undermine Intel's high-end microprocessors, which are designed to operate with the architecture. |
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Transmeta chips expected in devices next monthBy Ian Fried May 17, 2000 |
The first announcements of hotly anticipated products using Transmeta's low-power Crusoe chip could come next month, chief executive David Ditzel said today. "The logical place to look for systems would be at PC Expo," the June convention in New York where tech firms show off upcoming products, Ditzel said in an interview with CNET News.com. The comments came after his speech at PricewaterhouseCooper's Technology Forecast: 2000 in Santa Clara, Calif. |
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The Register Files |
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Human rights in China? Pah, says IntelBy Mike Magee May 17, 2000 |
Mighty global corporation Intel is fervently behind the normalisation of trade with Red China, and is putting its considerable muscle behind a lobbying group which wants the US Congress to just say 'yes' on the 22nd May.
As part of our continuing efforts to allow journalists to ask the right questions, we print below an internal Intel document which outlines the official view and also gives the answers to the questions you might not have thought about yet. Here we go... |
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Intel misjudgements to slow PC growthBy Mike Magee May 17, 2000 |
A report from FHI Research has pointed to continuing growth in the PC market, which could have amounted to 25 per cent this year ,were it not for the fact that Intel has mismanaged capacity during the course of the year.
But the report also suggests that unforeseen factors mean that growth patterns will widely vary from region to region, while other changes mean that Compaq is set to be a prime beneficiary, as PC growth continues. |
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Transmeta Crusoe shrinks to 0.15 micronBy Tony Smith May 17, 2000 |
Transmeta's Taiwanese fab partner, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
(TMSC), has begun sampling 0.15 micron Crusoe CPUs, according to Taiwan business paper the Commercial Times.
If accurate, that's an impressive leap over the 0.18 micron process Transmeta originally specified at Crusoe's launch, and should allow the company to get its chip family's low power consumption even lower. |
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Asus under fire over Intel recallBy Mike Magee May 17, 2000 |
Major Taiwanese mobo manufacturer Asus has clarified its position on the i820 recall forced on it because of Intel's little problem with the memory translator hub on synchronous memory boards.
But Asus, rather than replace their i820-based motherboards with spanking new Rambus-based solutions, is only offering a refund to customers, causing some to question the policy. |
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| May 17, 2000 | ||
Taiwan Semiconductor makes chip samples for TransmetaBy Stephen Lawson May 16, 2000 |
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has completed pilot production of a 0.15-micron processor for Transmeta, the microprocessor start-up that plans to create power-saving chips for portable devices.
The company could begin producing the processor in volume almost immediately if Transmeta orders them, according to TSMC spokesman J.H. Tzeng. |
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Itanium: Intel's Silicon StretchBy Oliver Rist May 16, 2000 |
We've been hearing the buzz about it for more than a year: Intel's mighty Merced, now called Itanium, the first processor to be based on Intel's long-awaited IA-64 architecture.
Is this just another step up the bigger-and-faster ladder, or is IA-64 truly the quantum leap Intel and its partners have been promising these many months? Exactly what difference would the latter make to the lives of harried network and systems administrators? In other words, aside from more CPU cycles, what does Itanium mean for you? |
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Kingston believes Rambus motherboard tester will lower module, system costsBy Jack Robertson May 16, 2000 |
Kingston Technology Inc. here expects that its joint development with Intel Corp. for a Direct Rambus DRAM motherboard tester will finish up its work on systems in the next few weeks. The testers will then be turned over to Intel for validation and made available for production use later this year, according to Kingston officials.
Fully automated motherboard testers are essential for Direct Rambus DRAM system applications, said Richard Kanadjian, director of technology at Kingston, which produces memory modules for PCs and computer equipment. |
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The Register Files |
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Intel to drop prices on non-existent boxed chipsBy Mike Magee May 16, 2000 |
Chip giant Intel, still reeling from the effect of supplying over a million defective 820 chipsets to its customers, is rallying slightly by dropping prices on its 1GHz processor and a range of other chips no-one can get.
Despite the fact that a previous document sent to its channel partners notified them that boxed microprocessors will not be available until quarter three this year, Intel has told its distributors and dealers to expect a price drop at the end of this month. |
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| May 16, 2000 | ||
ACLU Accuses Intel Of Violating Free SpeechBy Sherman Fridman May 15, 2000 |
The ACLU is backing a former Intel employee who was ordered to stop sending e-mail critical of Intel to coworkers. In a case of e-mail as free speech, the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed an Amici Curiae (Friend of the Court) brief in an appeal pending in the lawsuit brought against Kourosh Hamidi by Intel Corporation.
The brief was filed Thursday and addresses the right of a court to suppress the conduct of an employee who uses an employer's e-mail system to criticize the employer, according to Ann Brick, one of the attorneys representing the ACLU. |
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Transmeta promises big name manufacturing deals
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Start-up microprocessor firm Transmeta plans to announce details
of deals with a number of big-name US and Japanese manufacturers to produce power-saving laptops and Internet
devices, according to British press reports Monday.
This announcement scheduled for the end of June, could result in a period of fierce competition between Transmeta, Intel and other mobile processor manufacturers experts believe. Intel is also expected to launch mobile chips designed to compete with Transmeta at the end of June. |
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AMD's low-priced Duron chip slated for mid-JuneBy Michael Kanellos May 15, 2000 |
Advanced Micro Devices will release its Duron processor in the middle of June and, as promised, is keeping the price low.
The Duron processor, a version of the Athlon chip for consumer PCs, will come out during the week of June 12, according to sources close to AMD. The chip will initially run at 600 MHz, 650 MHz and 700 MHz, while a version running at 750 MHz will follow. |
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Labs'-eye view// IA-64By Peter Coffee May 15, 2000 |
Technical choices don't get much more clear-cut than the one between Intel's and AMD's strategies for migrating PC processors into 64-bit territory. With its release of technical details on its forthcoming Itanium CPU, Intel lays out the opportunity and the challenge of maximizing performance on a chip that "issues and executes instructions in software-supplied order." That description might seem redundant: Most people think of software as being a sequence of hardware instructions. | |
Intel intros new PC desktop boardMay 15, 2000 |
Intel Corp. today announced the D810EMO, a PC desktop board designed for small form factor PC designs. The company said the board supports the full line of Intel desktop microprocessors, including the Intel Pentium III and Intel Celeron processors.
The desktop board measures 9.0 inches x 7.5 inches, more than 30 percent smaller than a standard ATX form factor board, and has two USB ports on both the front and back of the system, allowing easy connection and disconnection of a wide variety of peripherals such as printers and scanners without having to restart the system, the company said. |
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The Register Files |
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1GHz CuMines rarer than dodo's teethBy Mike Magee May 15, 2000 |
In all the flurry about problems with i820 chipsets and "material costs", it's easy to forget that only a little while back, Intel and AMD were head to head over who would be first to rush a 1GHz microprocessor to market.
You'll remember that last week we reported that a clutch of second tier vendors were complaining that supplies were a little tight. |
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Intel dithers over i820 recall detailsBy Mike Magee and Andrew Thomas May 15, 2000 |
The Intel cockup over the i820 chipset has placed profits of Taiwanese mobo makers in financial jeopardy as the chip giant decides exactly how to tackle what has to be a major logistics nightmare.
As we reported here last week, the problems Intel will face after it admitted that a fault with the memory hub translator (MTH) on synchronous DRAM versions of the i820 chipset have spread far beyond just the simple recall of its ill-fated Cape Cod motherboard but have spread to third party mainboard manufacturers. We initially broke this story in March, meaning that Intel has had a full two months to not come up with the recall answer. |
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| May 15, 2000 | ||
PC makers await direction following Intel board recallBy Mark Hachman and Faith Hung May 12, 2000 |
It's no Pentium bug, but Intel Corp.'s recall of selected motherboards has customers waiting and wondering how quickly the company will correct the snafu.
While the number of affected components is relatively small, the recall will impose modest adjustments on the PC supply chain and white-box assemblers, according to observers. For now, OEMs and resellers are being asked to sit on their product inventory while logistical details are worked out. |
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Transmeta heads for chip warBy Tom Foremski May 14, 2000 |
Transmeta, an ambitious Silicon Valley start-up company, is set to challenge Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, in what is shaping up to be a "David and Goliath" battle in the market for microprocessor chips to build personal computers.
The start-up has won contracts with several leading US and Japanese personal computer companies to supply chips for the next generation of "ultra-lightweight" notebook computers, which it plans to announce at the end of June. |
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Intel to discontinue two mobile Celeron microprocessorsBy Mark Hachman May 12, 2000 |
Two versions of Intel Corp.'s mobile Celeron processor have been discontinued, as customer demand has shifted to higher-speed parts.
The end-of-life notices on the 433- and 466-MHz mobile Celeron chips also conclude Intel's transition to 0.18-micron wafer processing in the mobile space. Intel will still sell two other mobile Celeron speed grades, at 450 and 500 MHz. Intel said late last week that the 433- and 466-MHz mobile Celerons will be phased out over the course of the year, according to a notice the Santa Clara, Calif., company sent to its customers. |
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Intel's Itanium disclosure poses 64-bit challengeBy Peter Coffee May 12, 2000 |
Technical choices don’t get much more clear-cut than the one between Intel Corp.'s and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s strategies for migrating PC processors into 64-bit territory.
With its release this week of technical details on its forthcoming Itanium CPU, Intel lays out the opportunity and the challenge of maximizing performance on a chip that "issues and executes instructions in software-supplied order." That description might seem redundant: most people think of software as being a sequence of hardware instructions. |
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The Register Files |
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Industry, users to face Intel-Rambus Willamette duopolyBy Mike Magee May 14, 2000 |
It is widely expected that when Willamette arrives later this year, hopeful third party chipset manufacturers will be prevented from access to its bus technology, and that means only Intel chipsets will be available to support its up-and-coming IA-32 AMD buster.
That, in turn, will mean a huge boost for memory technology firm Rambus, which the company has publicly stated will be the only memory that Willamette will use. |
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