Microprocessor
Headline News

Top Stories for June 23, 2000 (details below)
C/Net	Hitachi settles Rambus patent suit
Electronic Buyers' News	Major players target X86-based SoCs at Internet appliances
Electronic Buyers' News	IBM takes close look at Transmeta processor with ThinkPad demo
C/Net	Intel's Dot.Station joins crowded device market
The Register Files
The Register	Intel turns off microprocessor tap again
The Register	Duron shortages looming?
The Register	Intel says Rambus-Tosh deal not final word
The Register	Intel's Barrett: I will retire

Microprocessor Headline News

Collected By Robert R. Collins

Week of June 18, 2000

Older News

June 23, 2000
Hitachi settles Rambus patent suit By Reuters June 22, 2000 C/Net	Rambus today said computer memory supplier Hitachi had agreed to a patent licensing deal, settling patent litigation between the two and putting added pressure on other chip makers to strike similar royalty deals with Rambus. The agreement settles patent infringement suits filed by Rambus against Hitachi in United States, German and international courts and sets the stage for Rambus to reach patent royalty settlements with other chip makers, a Rambus executive said.
Major players target X86-based SoCs at Internet appliances By Mark Hachman June 22, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	Tempted by the lure of a lucrative, untapped market, some established companies are taking a stab at an X86-based system-on-a-chip. After ceding the PC market to its rivals last year, Rise Technology Co. has joined with STMicroelectronics Inc. to design an integrated processor for Web-browsing appliances and similar products. Not to be outdone, ZF Linux Devices Inc. (formerly ZF Micro Devices) has spun a Cyrix-based SoC for similar markets.
IBM takes close look at Transmeta processor with ThinkPad demo By Mark Hachman June 22, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	A senior IBM executive has confirmed that the company will indeed ship a notebook PC based on chips from Transmeta Corp. this fall, as long as Transmeta can live up to its promises. At the PC Expo show next week in New York, IBM will feature the next-generation Transmeta TM5600 chip as part of a technology demonstration using an IBM ThinkPad 240 notebook chassis, said Leo Suarez, director of worldwide product marketing at IBM, Raleigh, N.C. The ThinkPad, which is IBM's entrant into the 3-pound "mininotebook" or "ultraportable" notebook market, will feature a custom motherboard and chipset, Suarez said.
Intel's Dot.Station joins crowded device market By Michael Kanellos June 22, 2000 C/Net	Intel will enter the increasingly crowded field for Internet appliances today with the Dot.Station, a countertop terminal powered by Red Hat Linux that lets people surf the Web, exchange emails and make phone calls. The Dot.Station--which will be announced today, shown next week in New York, and begin to reach customers in the third quarter--is the latest in a series of devices designed to bring the Internet into homes without PCs. Although many believe that the Internet device market will be huge, no company has really experienced a smash success.
The Register Files
Intel turns off microprocessor tap again By Mike Magee June 22, 2000 The Register	European OEMs have been told by chip giant Intel they will have to wait until the third week of July for supply of Coppermine processors. The latest glitch in Intel's continuing problems in supplying its microprocessors is unlikely to affect very large tier one vendors such as Dell, but is a blow to the smaller tier two and tier three vendors. One major European vendor told The Register this morning that the latest shortage applied to all CuMine parts. "My schedule just has a load of blank spaces until the end of July."
Duron shortages looming? By Andrew Thomas June 22, 2000 The Register	The hardware site cognoscenti are making much of the fact that AMD's Celeron basher, Duron, is a completely different beast from the high end Athlons and Thunderbirds. And in a simplistic way, they're right. The fact that Duron is a completely different processor from its big brothers has a certain elegance – and that's precisely the sort of thing the hardware geeks go for. Intel's Celeron has always been a cut down, hobbled, castrated Pentium II or III – a fact that the AMD camp trot out at every opportunity. Of course, they actually love the Celeron because there's a big macho thing about how much you can overclock them, but there's always the taint of having a processor that somehow isn't the best that money can buy – it's always going to be a Ford Escort with plastic spoilers and a cheap aftermarket turbo rather than a Jaguar XKR.
Intel says Rambus-Tosh deal not final word By Mike Magee June 22, 2000 The Register	The decision by Toshiba to license DDR (double data rate) memory and SDRAM from Rambus will not necessarily hedge in other memory companies, according to Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel. Responding to questions in a press conference held after he delivered a keynote speech in Stockholm, Tuesday, Barrett said that the Toshiba deal did not necessarily mean that Rambus would dominate the memory market.
Intel's Barrett: I will retire By Mike Magee June 21, 2000 The Register	Stockholm In an unusually frank admission that he has other plans than to work for Intel forever, Craig Barrett, CEO of the semiconductor firm, told The Register he is looking for a successor, almost certainly from inside the company. Barrett, asked whether he had any plans to retire, said he was unaware of the rumours that his departure was in the offing, but did say that his replacement, when he or she arrives, may not be selected for their semiconductor background.
June 21, 2000
Intel to take $200 million charge to fix motherboards By Michael Kanellos June 20, 2000 C/Net	Intel today said it would take a charge of $200 million in the second quarter to cover costs associated with a motherboard recall, bringing the total cost of the recall to approximately $253 million. In addition, the company announced it will report a massive amount of capital gains and income from outside investments this quarter, including shares in memory maker Micron Technologies. Intel said income from interest and other sources will come to approximately $2.3 billion in the second quarter, more than $1.5 billion above the $725 million in outside income the company said it expected for the quarter in April.
Intel revises processor cores to boost speed, shrink die By Mark Hachman June 20, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	Intel Corp. has undertaken a sweeping revision of its microprocessor cores to bump up clock speeds while trimming the die size by 5% to 9%. According to a summary of product change notifications that Intel is supplying to its customers, "small-cache" Pentium III Xeons, Pentium III desktop microprocessors, and mobile Pentium III and Celeron microprocessors are transitioning from a so-called "B-0" to "C-0" stepping. OEMs suspect that the desktop Celeron is also affected, given that the die is essentially the same size as the Pentium III.
Intel releases new mobile processors By Paul Thurrott June 20, 2000 WinInfo	Intel Corporation released a batch of new microprocessors for mobile computers this week, upping the ante in the race to increase performance while lowering power consumption and heat. The chips include new versions of its Pentium III and Celeron designs, including a Pentium III running at 750 MHz and a new 600 MHz design that consumes only 1 watt of electricity. Intel's recent focus on power consumption is seen as a response to the threat from Transmeta, whose Crusoe processor consumes very little energy, enabling longer battery life.
Transmeta slams latest Intel chips By Linda Leung June 20, 2000 VnuNet.com	Transmeta, the startup that has the industry buzzing with its forthcoming Crusoe mobile chip, has accused Intel of confusing the market with its latest family of Pentium chips. On Monday Intel unveiled a range of mobile Pentium III processors, including a 600Mhz chip that uses less than one watt of power using Intel's Speedstep technology, thereby saving laptop battery life. However, Transmeta said all its chips would consume less than one watt, and criticised Intel for confusing the market with even more Pentium varieties
Transmeta to unveil chip customers By John G. Spooner June 20, 2000 ZD Net News	Secretive chip maker Transmeta Corp. will make a splash in the Big Apple next week, revealing the names of several PC makers who are expected to use its Crusoe TM 5400 notebook chips. Transmeta, which is in direct competition with heavyweights Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro DevicesInc., earlier this year unveiled its new type of PC processor to much acclaim -- but few customers. The company hopes to remedy that at next week's PC Expo trade show in New York, where a series of manufacturers will demonstrate several notebook PCs based on the 5400 chip.
The Register Files
Intel notebook demos '100% Transmeta compatible' By Andrew Orlowski June 20, 2000 The Register	Intel used its mobile chip launch this week to allay fears of incompatibilities between Transmeta presentations and its own demonstrations of mobile Notebook chips. Previously, spin engineers had encountered technical difficulties in the demanding science of reproducing Transmeta publicity point-by-point. But The Register was on hand at the launch of five new mobile chips in San Francisco, and we can confirm that the Intel has largely achieved compatibility with the Transmeta instruction set.
I've got a Willamette at home By Andrew Thomas June 20, 2000 The Register	For those readers who like that sort of thing, Hardware Central has posted some pictures reputed to be of an early sample Willamette. The pictures are of the usual electronic quality - ie. complete crap - but that didn't put off our resident semiconductor sleuth from poring over them with a magnifying glass. The conclusion he came to was that the pix may, or may not, be genuine and that the chip could be a Willamette and that the mobo it's sitting in might be an early Intel sample using the i850 chipset.
Intel .13 micron fab online next year By Andrew Thomas June 20, 2000 The Register	Intel is spending $2 billion to build a new wafer fabrication facility in Leixlip, Ireland. Fab 24 will include 135,000 square feet of cleanroom in a total of more than a million square feet of space. The fab will build products on the 0.13 micron process. Construction will begin immediately with first production expected in the second half of 2001. The new factory will initially manufacture on 200mm silicon wafers, but will be capable of moving at a later date to 300mm.
June 20, 2000
Intel targets Crusoe with low-power notebook chips By Michael Kanellos June 19, 2000 C/Net	Chip giant Intel today unveiled five new notebook processors, including two low-power chips designed to compete against Transmeta's Crusoe. As previously reported, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company released a 750-MHz Pentium III and two Celerons running at 650 MHz and 600 MHz for the mainstream notebook market. In addition, the company released two low voltage processors for the ultraportable market: a 600-MHz Pentium III that consumes an average of less than a watt of power, as well as a 500-MHz Celeron that consumes less than 2 watts.
Commentary: Intel still runs rings around its rivals By Kevin Knox, Gartner Analyst June 19, 2000 C/Net	Like a durable heavyweight, chip giant Intel will withstand the latest jabs from AMD and kidney shots from Transmeta--at least in this round. Despite Intel's continuing manufacturing delays and AMD's improving mind share, Intel still has the support of the majority of PC original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)--a key to its market dominance. However, the one-two punch from competitors will pressure Intel to defend its market share. Transmeta's low power chip, Crusoe, is targeted at the thin and light mobile-market, while AMD's low-cost Duron aims for the low end of the PC market.
Why should administrators care about Transmeta's new chip? By James McPherson Jan 28, 2000 Tech Republic	Here's the deal. Transmeta, the most secretive chip designer on earth, has finally released its mobile processor family. This is not your father's Oldsmobile. This is not even your Oldsmobile. Meet Crusoe The Crusoe runs its own native instruction set, but you'll never see it or hear of it. Why? The Crusoe's "Man Friday" is the decoder, a special invisible program layer that turns x86 instructions into Crusoe code. As if that weren't neat enough, the decoder also optimizes the code the more often it sees something. In other words, the longer you run an application, the faster it gets.
Intel Debuts 815 Chipset Line By Mark Hackman June 19, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	As expected, Intel cut a broad swath into the low-power mobile microprocessor market Monday with the launch of five new processors. In addition, Intel (stock: INTC) rolled out the Intel 815 and Intel 815E chipsets for the desktop computing market. The release of Intel's mobile microprocessors has already attracted attention from Transmeta, which Intel is challenging with a new 600-MHz mobile Pentium III processor. That chip, which runs at 1.1 V, consumes approximately 1 watt, Intel executives claimed.
AMD takes wraps off low-end Duron processor By Ken Popovich June 19, 2000 eWEEK	Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is looking to break Intel's Corp.'s firm hold on the "value-PC" market with Monday's formal launch of the Duron, its newest processor designed for PCs selling for less than $1,000. While AMD's top-of-the-line Athlon chip has succeeded in garnering a sizeable share of the high-end consumer PC market in the United States since its introduction last August, the chip maker's K6-2 chip has been unable to hold ground against Intel's Celeron products in the value-PC segment.
AMD chip aims to beat Intel's Celeron By Michael Kanellos June 19, 2000 C/Net	Advanced Micro Devices' release of its low-end Duron processor should give the company a performance advantage in the budget PC market, but computers using the chip won't be readily available until next month. The processor, officially released today, will initially run at 600 MHz, 650 MHz and 700 MHz. A budget version of AMD's Athlon processor, the Duron will be found primarily in low-cost PCs, ranging in price from $899 to $1,199, according to Mark Bode, division marketing manager for AMD.
Rambus' DRAM patent deal with Toshiba stuns analysts By Mark Hachman June 19, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	Once a curiosity, then an upstart, and more recently a controversial player, Rambus Inc. emerged last week as a company that could prove to be the tollbooth of the semiconductor industry. Industry analysts expressed utter shock at Toshiba Corp.'s concession to Rambus' claim that it essentially owns the fundamental rights to the synchronous DRAM memory interface used by the majority of the semiconductor industry (see June 16 story). Indeed, Toshiba's decision could have a profound impact on a wide range of companies, according to observers, as Rambus prepares to conduct similar licensing deals with memory and logic firms alike.
The Register Files
Intel's Timna has dead duck look'n'feel By Mike Magee June 19, 2000 The Register	Behind the scenes at the Computex show a fortnight ago, some folk were shown Intel's not-so-up-and-coming Timna system on a chip device. Gigabyte was less cautious, and showed a Timna AGP motherboard in its suite in the Hyatt, although a suit brought his hand up in front of our digital camera just before we caught it for posterity.
AMD Duron leaves Celery stuffed By Lucy Sherriff June 19, 2000 The Register	There is only one topic up for discussion in Hardware Land today: the release of AMD's budget CPU, the Duron. Benchmarking tests from AMD look encouraging with the Duron beating the Celeron by as much as 25 per cent at the same clock speed. The processor is available in 600MHz, 650MHz and 700MHz speeds with 192KB of on-chip cache, and a 200MHz FSB. In batches of 1000, the 600MHz, 650MHz and 700MHz chips have a per processor price of $112, $154 and $192 respectively.
Intel confirms details of new mobiles By Andrew Thomas June 19, 2000 The Register	As predicted by The Register here, Intel today duly takes the wraps off two new mobile Pentium IIIs and a trio of mobile Celerons. The new mobile 750/600MHz Pentium III (the second figure is the battery optimized Geezerville aka SpeedStep rating) uses less than 2W of power at 1.35V in battery operation, and costs $562 in 1000-unit quantities.
June 19, 2000
Intel's low-power launch could strand Transmeta's Crusoe By Mark Hachman June 16, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	Taking aim against Transmeta Corp.'s Crusoe processor, Intel Corp. on Monday is rolling out five low-power mobile chips, the company's largest launch ever. Intel will debut a 600-MHz mobile Pentium III with a new version of its SpeedStep power-consumption technology. The design will reduce the chip's power to a minimum of about 1 watt, easily in the range of Transmeta's flagship Crusoe processor, the TM5400, sources said.
Intel aims at Transmeta with new notebook chips By Michael Kanellos June 16, 2000 C/Net	A cavalcade of notebooks will hit shelves and e-commerce sites soon, as Intel on Monday will come out with five new notebook processors, including two low-power chips designed to compete against Transmeta's Crusoe. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company will release a 750-MHz Pentium III and two Celerons running at 650-MHz and 600-MHz for the mainstream notebook market, said sources close to the company.
New memory technology moves Rambus into consumer market By Mark Hachman June 17, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	Rambus Inc. uncurled the third leg of its memory-interface strategy Friday afternoon, extending its technology into the consumer market. The disclosure of the 12.8-Gbytes/s Quad Rambus Signaling Level (QRSL) technology is intended to complement the Rambus ASIC Cell (RAC) used with PC main memory, as well as the serial/deserializer [SerDes] technology the company designed for the communications space.
Rambus patent claims burrow to heart of semiconductor industry By Mark Hachman June 17, 2000 Electronic Buyers' News	Once a curiosity, then an upstart, and more recently a controversial player, Rambus Inc. emerged Friday as a company that could prove to be the tollbooth of the semiconductor industry. Analysts expressed utter shock at Toshiba Corp.'s concession to Rambus' claim that it essentially owns the fundamental rights to the synchronous DRAM memory interface used by the majority of the semiconductor industry. Indeed, Toshiba's decision could have a profound impact on a wide range of companies, according to observers, as Rambus prepares to conduct similar licensing deals with memory and logic firms alike.
Rambus soars on analyst upgrade, Toshiba deal By Ian Fried June 16, 2000 C/Net	Shares of memory chip company Rambus soared today after a brokerage upgraded the stock and Toshiba agreed to license the company's patents for use in standard memory. At the close of regular trading, Rambus was up $26.69, or 46 percent, to $83.38 on a volume of 64 million shares. The stock shot up after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst Mark Edelstone upgraded the stock to "strong buy." The company recently split its shares 4-for-1.
CPU vendors split over SOI By David Lammers June 16, 2000 EE Times	Several of the major microprocessor vendors, with the significant exception of Intel Corp., are moving to silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, opening a growing divide in the CPU market. Following the lead of IBM Corp., which has long been banging the drum for SOI, Motorola Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. are jumping on the SOI bandwagon, drawn by potential performance gains of as much as 20 percent. Also, IBM reportedly will serve as the foundry for a Hewlett-Packard Co. RISC processor built in SOI, and TI will apparently do the same for a Sun Microsystems Sparc CPU.
Chip makers see 0.10-micron within their grasp By Anthony Cataldo June 16, 2000 EE Times	Chip makers are moving closer to making the 0.10-micron process node a reality as they break through the sub-100-nanometer barrier for transistor gate lengths and report progress on new materials to enable further scaling. Developments in device engineering from companies and research laboratories presented here at the 2000 Symposium on VLSI Technology suggest the industry is on track to the 0.10-micron technology node. According to Intel Corp., they will probably reach that level in the next 2.5 years.
The Register Files
Rambus rambushes DDR camp By Mike Magee June 18, 2000 The Register	Surely the prayer of every Rambus suit as she or he rises in the morning must be "give us this day your daily bread"? As the sun set over Mountain View last Friday, local residents must have been startled to hear hallelujahs and praise the lords from the usually silent Rambus campus as the suits changed into their cashual gear and boogied on down to the local burgher bar, drinking good Californian wines just before the warehouse burnt to the ground, with 90,000 gallons going to hell.
Toshiba DDR Dramurai domino falls to Rambus By Mike Magee June 16, 2000 The Register	Anyone old enough to remember the fab TV footage from the 70s when a new type of fever gripped the Japanese, and we saw gazillions of DIMM size dominoes falling all in a row? Because, in news that has a great deal of relevance for the PC industry, Toshiba last night became the biggest memory player to bite the Rambus bullet and to license SDRAM (synchronous memory) and DDR (double data rate) memory from the Mountain View intellectual property machine.
How the hell... do you overclock the AMD T'bird? By Fuad Abazovic June 16, 2000 The Register	Well that didn't take long: K7oc has successfully overclocked the new Athlon Thunderbird, cranking up the speed from 700MHz to 850MHz. You can read the review here. That certainly removes one question mark over the New Athlon - as the Thunderbird is now officially known. Many overclockers were anxious that the capability to overclock the chip would be severely curtailed.
AMD acts to save mobo makers' faces By Mike Magee June 16, 2000 The Register	Taiwanese major manufacturers who faced ending up with a million useless Via mobos using the KX-133 chipset have been saved by AMD largesse, it emerged today. Last week, we reported from the Computex show in Taiwan that up to a million motherboards using the KX, rather than the KT-133 Via chipset were lying a mouldering in Taiwanese warehouses, after AMD introduced its Socket A platform.
Intel downplays PC-133, Screaming Cindy, on notebooks By Mike Magee June 17, 2000 The Register	Internal Intel roadmaps seen by The Register indicate that notebook chips which will be launched next Monday -- as exclusively revealed here last January -- are just the thin end of a DDR (double data rate) wedge from Chipzilla Central in Santa Clara. Further, Intel is not overconcerned with Transmeta, the notes reveal, but is far more concerned with making notebooks that incorporate synchronous memory, and is downplaying the fact that such chipsets also support Screaming SIMD extensions. AMD is the real, retail enemy.
Intel mobile plans for next nine months unfold By Mike Magee June 17, 2000 The Register	Intel will introduce two SpeedStep based mobile Pentium IIIs in September at speeds of 800MHz and 850MHz, according to a roadmap we viewed at Computex last week. Further, as we pointed out in a separate story earlier today, it is positioning Bluetush technology for businesses, home and road-warrior activity.

Microprocessor Headline News

Week of June 18, 2000

The Register Files

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Microprocessor
Headline News