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| Top Stories for August 4, 2000 (details below) | |
| C/Net | AMD's Duron will miss back-to-school rush |
| Linux Magazine |
The Transmeta Mystery How Did an Unknown Startup Company Hire the Creator of Linux and What are They Doing with Him? |
| Electronic News Online | Intel to Detail Roadmap for IA-64-Based Systems at IDF |
| TechWeb News | Microprocessors, Memory, Mobility On Tap For IDF |
| The Register Files | |
| The Register | Rambus: You're terminated *!@$ - Intel |
| The Register | This megahertz madness must end |
| The Register | Duron placeholder for AMDgeddon... |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of July 30, 2000 |
Older News |
| August 4, 2000 | ||
AMD's Duron will miss back-to-school rushBy Michael Kanellos August 3, 2000 |
The first day of school is coming, but the Duron chip from Advanced Micro Devices won't be in class.
Although it came out in June, the Duron processor, a budget version of the company's Athlon chip, won't appear in computers from major manufacturers until late September or October, an unusually lengthy gap. |
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The Transmeta Mystery
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"I could tell you what I'm working on, but then I'd have to kill you." For close to a year, this was Linux creator Linus Torvalds' answer to anyone naive enough to ask him about his day job. It's not that Torvalds was paranoid. He just happened to be working for the most secretive start-up in Silicon Valley history:
Transmeta, Corp.
But in January of this year, the veil was lifted, and the true story of Transmeta and what exactly they're doing with Torvalds could be told. |
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Intel to Detail Roadmap for IA-64-Based Systems at IDFBy Tom Murphy August 2, 2000 |
Intel Corp. will be revealing more details about its long awaited Itanium 64-bit microprocessor at the Intel Developer Forum Fall 2000 starting Aug. 22, at the San Jose Convention Center.
Intel is poised for full deployment of the oft-delayed, much-anticipated IA-64 chip for the fourth quarter of this year, said Mike Fister, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Enterprise Platforms Group. |
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Microprocessors, Memory, Mobility On Tap For IDFBy Mark Hachman August 3, 2000 |
Intel will likely disclose its first DSP, as well as its latest opinion on PC memory, later this month at the Intel Developer Forum
(IDF).
The show's theme, "Powering the Net, Connecting the Net," also underscores Intel's own diversification. In 1997, the conference was almost exclusively focused on the PC. Now, the PC is but one avenue for Intel (stock: INTC) to shop its expertise. Company and industry executives will present similar tracks on servers, embedded computing, wireless, and a hefty dose of software. |
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| August 2, 2000 | ||
IBM promises Transmeta notebook this yearBy Jo Ticehurst August 1, 2000 |
IBM has confirmed that it will launch a range of notebook computers based on Transmeta's Crusoe chip later this year.
Following its demonstration of prototype notebooks running Crusoe at the PC Expo show in June, IBM cast doubt on its commitment to the chip and said it was still evaluating customer demand. However, the company today confirmed that it will offer Crusoe-based versions of its I-Series consumer notebooks in the fourth quarter of this year. The notebooks will be sold direct via IBM's website. Big Blue has not specified whether the notebooks will be available through other channels. |
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The Register Files |
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Rambus: You're terminated *!@$ - IntelBy Mike Magee August 1, 2000 |
As an innocent young bairn brought up in bonny Scotland we were always puzzled when we came across **** in a piece of text. Did adults have some dark secret they weren't sharing with their children?
Not as perplexed as when every front page of every UK national newspaper carried big white blanks when Britain and France invaded Suez in 1956. Question: "Is this called censorship, dad?" Answer: "No, it's called freedom of the press, son." But still pretty puzzled. |
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This megahertz madness must endBy Andrew Thomas August 1, 2000 |
Intel has never detailed exactly how many of its CPUs it ships - at any speed. But at the high end the word on the street is that, over the past three months, AMD probably shipped more than a dozen 1GHz CPUs for every Intel chip of the same speed.
Time was when Intel saved its technology demonstrations for IDF, where luminaries such as Albert Yu and Kicking Pat Gelsinger would stand up and demonstrate a CPU achieving an impressive clock speed, perhaps some 20 per cent or so above the fastest chip available at the time. |
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Duron placeholder for AMDgeddon...By Mike Magee August 1, 2000 |
Readers who wonder why they haven't seen much marchitecting of AMD's ineffable Duron microprocessor need wonder no longer.
The firm is barely marketing the Duron apart from on its own Web site and people are flocking in their droves to buy the AMD Athlon, which now has established itself as a brand, despite its own ineffable name. |
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| August 1, 2000 | ||
Intel retakes the speed leadBy Will Knight July 31, 2000 |
Intel Corp. introduced a 1.13GHz Pentium III processor Sunday, beating arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to the punch in the next round of clock-speed combat.
The launch of the chip -- the fastest clock-speed consumer microprocessor to date -- is an important PR win for Intel, which was beaten to the all-important 1GHz mark by AMD. Priced at $990 per unit in 1,000-unit quantities, the chip is available immediately, Intel said, although it concedes the chips will be in limited supply at first. |
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Rambus announces 33% faster RDRAMs at speeds over 1 GHz with faster test programsJuly 31. 2000 |
Rambus Inc. here today disclosed chip-testing developments with partners to push the speed of Rambus DRAMs to 1,066-MHz speeds, an increase of 33% over current RDRAM products. Rambus claimed the faster memory chips were the first DRAMs capable of transferring data at speeds over 1
gigahertz.
The 1,066-MHz RDRAM is a result of higher-speed testing, which will enable manufacturers to "bin" faster parts from existing 800-MHz RDRAM devices. It remains unclear how quickly 1,066-MHz RDRAMs will become available and at what volumes, although Rambus hinted that significant shipments were not expected until 2001. |
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The Register Files |
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Via puts weight behind 1394, DDRBy Mike Magee July 31, 2000 |
Chip and chipset company Via said it is to hold its first technology forum in Taipei in mid-September.
And, at that forum, the company is proposing an "open value" technology platform for the Net which will include support for 1394 "Fireware" and double data rate (DDR) memory. The firm said that the two day forum, on the 20-21st of September, will be immediately followed by single day roadshows in Tokyo, Beijing, Munich and Prague. |
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AMD confirms Corvette plansBy Mike Magee July 31, 2000 |
A senior executive at AMD has confirmed that it has plans to release low power mobile versions of its Athlon and Duron processors in the fourth quarter of this year.
But the confirmation, made by Ben Anixter, a VP at AMD, and quoted in news.com, does not provide details of the roadmap, exclusively revealed here in The Register earlier in the year. |
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ServerWorks pivotal in Intel-Rambus chipset taleBy Mike Magee July 31, 2000 |
Intel and the biggest PC vendors in the world are relying on ServerWorks, a maker of chipsets, to help sell servers during 2001, so making the mysterious firm a key factor in the memory politics currently plaguing the industry.
A little while back, The Register published information about server roadmaps which showed that Intel is relying heavily on ServerWorks technology for its high end microprocessors next year. |
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| July 31, 2000 | ||
Rambus' hopes dealt another major blow by Intel
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Intel Corp.'s decision to build SDRAM-enabled chipsets into its Pentium 4 microprocessor program deals another blow to the hopes of Rambus Inc. to drive its technology into the PC-market mainstream.
The fact that the company's Direct Rambus DRAM interface may share a berth with a rival memory architecture means OEMs will enjoy a greater range of choices when the Pentium 4 is launched next year. But it is also causing forecasters to recalibrate their market estimates for Direct RDRAM, which after several false starts was expected to make a big showing in 2001. |
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Rambus adds Oki Semiconductor to licensee listBy Bill McIlvaine July 28, 2000 |
Keeping a base of patent licensees in the face of recent high-profile setbacks with Intel Corp., Rambus Inc. today struck an agreement with Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd., Tokyo, under which Oki will license
Rambus' technology for SDRAM, double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM, and certain controller ICs.
Oki Electric's managing director, Masayoshi Ino, said the deal with Rambus was “necessary for current and future memory and logic products.” Oki Semiconductor had about $480 million in DRAM sales last year, placing it 10th worldwide. Oki, however, now concentrates on application-specific memories instead of commodity DRAMs. |
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Intel throws its weight behind processors, not memory decisionBy Jack Robertson July 28, 2000 |
Intel Corp. isn't going to let Direct Rambus DRAM, or any memoryinterface for that matter, stand in the way of its primary goal of selling microprocessors.
That sentiment rang clear this past week when the company said it will develop a core-logic chip set that will allow OEMs to pair upcoming Pentium 4 CPUs with PC133 main SDRAM. By its actions, Intel once again showed that when push comes to shove, satisfying customer demand for its products takes precedence over promoting Direct RDRAM as the PC industry's next standard memory. |
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Will Rise rise again?By Ian Fried July 28, 2000 |
Rise Technology, a Silicon Valley start-up that once planned to take on Intel for the low end of the PC processor market, is following the path of many who failed at that task: It is targeting the Internet appliance market.
After National Semiconductor and IDT left the PC chip market last year, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Rise took another look at its product and decided the appliance market was a better target. |
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Intel, AMD battle for chip speed crownBy Michael Kanellos July 28, 2000 |
Intel will hurdle past another speed barrier Monday when it releases a 1.13-GHz Pentium III, but rival Advanced Micro Devices won't be far behind with a 1.1-GHz Athlon on Aug. 28.
AMD is also busy preparing Athlon chips for the notebook market. In the fourth quarter, the company will come out with Corvette, a low-power version of Athlon for deluxe notebooks and desktops, and Camaro, a similar chip for budget portables. |
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The Register Files |
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Hamidi outlines proposed Intel class actionsBy Mike Magee July 28, 2000 |
The long history of litigation between Ken Hamidi and the Intel Corporation isn't going to go away real soon now, and in fact, is set to intensify.
Hamidi, who is currently fighting a summary judgement in the US courts following an action Intel took against him, revealed to The Register earlier this week that whether his appeal against the judgement fails or not, he will initiate two class action suits against the firm just as soon as a fresh verdict is handed down. |
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Rambus, Pentium 4: The Hall of MirrorsBy Mike Magee July 28, 2000 |
Back in June we revealed that Taiwanese OEMs were holding off implementing the first rev of the Pentium 4, because only two or three quarters after introduction, which we believe will happen in September, the Tulloch chipset supporting a 479 pin version of the microprocessor will supersede it.
This week's admission by Intel that it is developing a PC-133 solution for the Pentium 4, probably ready in the second half of next year, only serves to remind us of that old fairground attraction known as the Hall of Mirrors, with everything distorted in whichever direction you look. |
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Minor Dramurai tumbles to RambusBy Mike Magee July 28, 2000 |
Bloomberg is reporting that Oki, a maker of synchronous DRAM memories, has agreed to license both DDR and SDRAM patents from Rambus Ink.
That should give Rambus' share price a kick up the pants, given that it has been in freefall ever since Intel confirmed it would create DDR and SDRAM chipsets supporting its up-and-coming Pentium 4 chip. |
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