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Microprocessor
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| Top Stories for December 1, 2000 (details below) | |
| eWEEK | NEC recalls Transmeta notebooks |
| Electronic Buyers' News | Transmeta says flawed chips unlikely in other PCs |
| C/Net | Sony won't recall Transmeta notebooks despite problems |
| Semiconductor Business News | Via announces new 650- and 667-MHz processors for low-cost PCs |
|
The Register Files |
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| The Register | Retail chain pulls HP P4s from the shelves |
| The Register | Athlon Palomino to include Screaming Sindy? |
| The Register | 1.7GHz Athlon - too hot to trot? |
| The Register | AMD tests 'super silicon' to beat heat problems |
| The Register | Intel ships 6000 Itaniums |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of November 26, 2000 |
Older News |
| December 1, 2000 | |
NEC recalls Transmeta notebooksBy Ken Popovich November 30, 2000 |
NEC Corp. announced today it is recalling up to 300 notebooks sold in Japan due to a problem involving a new processor by Transmeta Corp.
Apparently a flaw in the 600MHz Crusoe processor, known as the TM 5600, causes the notebook to fail if consumers try to reinstall the operating system using a backup disk supplied by NEC, both companies said in statements released Thursday. |
Transmeta says flawed chips unlikely in other PCsBy Reuters November 30, 2000 |
Transmeta Corp said on Thursday flawed versions of its ``Crusoe'' chips could have been used by computer makers other than Japan's NEC Corp, but added that it was unlikely.
``Right now, we have no clear evidence that other customers are affected. Should we find evidence to the contrary, we will certainly deal with that,'' James Chapman, Transmeta's senior vice president for sales and marketing, told Reuters in an interview. |
Sony won't recall Transmeta notebooks despite problemsBy Michael Kanellos November 30, 2000 |
Sony isn't recalling its Transmeta-based notebooks, although the company is warning Japanese customers that some of the computers might have problems.
Sony representatives announced Thursday that the company will not recall Vaio notebooks containing Crusoe chips from Transmeta, refuting news reports from other press agencies. The Vaio notebooks in question are sold in Japan and the United States, but Sony said the potential problem is limited to products sold in Japan. |
Via announces new 650- and 667-MHz processors for low-cost PCsNovember 30, 2000 |
In a move to expand its microprocessor business, Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc. here today introduced two new chips for the low-cost PC and related markets.
Based on an advanced, 0.18-micron process technology, the two new Via Cyrix III line of processors from the Taipei-based chip maker run at speeds of 650- and 667-MHz. The chips are targeted for the "value" segments of the x86-based desktop, notebook, and information appliance markets, said Wenchi Chen, president and chief executive of Via. |
The Register Files |
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Retail chain pulls HP P4s from the shelvesBy John Leyden November 30, 2000 |
Last week Hewlett-Packard crowed that it had sold out of Pentium 4s: it also told The Register that no machines containing a faulty BIOS supplied by Intel had escaped into the public.
Today it has egg on its face, after its P4s were hauled off the shelves at Best Buy retail outlets in the US - to have BIOS upgrades which should have been performed in factories. Anyone attempting to purchase computer systems featuring Pentium 4 chips at Best Buy outlets in Houston, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida and elsewhere in the southern US were told Pentium 4 systems were no longer available, according to IDG. |
Athlon Palomino to include Screaming Sindy?By Andrew Thomas November 30, 2000 |
AMD's new Athlon core, codenamed Palomino, is due to ship at 1.4GHz in January, 1.5GHz in Q2 and 1.7GHz in 2H 2001. Key improvements will include much improved branch prediction, cooler running, hardware prefetch and core optimisations to improve FPU and ALU performance.
But most intriguing is a suggestion from sources close to AMD that Palomino will also be the first AMD chip to incorporate Intel's original Screaming Sindy (Katmai) instructions first implemented with the Pentium III. AMD is known to have plans to adopt the Pentium 4's extra 144 Screaming Sindy 2 instructions, but it's thought unlikely these will appear before the arrival of the Hammer family in 2002. |
1.7GHz Athlon - too hot to trot?By Andrew Thomas November 29, 2000 |
AMD was quietly confident earlier today in London when the company confirmed its plans for a 1.7GHz Athlon sometime in the second half of 2001.
The new part will still be built using the current 180nm process as the first 0.13 micron samples from AMD's Dresden fab won't come on stream until late in the year for production in early 2002. |
AMD tests 'super silicon' to beat heat problemsNovember 30, 2000 |
When we cast doubt on AMD's abilty to produce an Athlon running at 1.7GHz that wouldn't run so hot it melted the solder on the mobo, we received the usual flood of 'you're in Intel's pocket' emails.
But in among the venom lurked an interesting item: a reader claimed that, for over 12 months, AMD has been quietly producing test chips using a new, pure version of silicon with greatly enhanced thermal properties, making a 1.7GHz Palomino a more practical proposition. |
Intel ships 6000 ItaniumsBy Andrew Thomas November 29, 2000 |
By the time Intel's Itanic finally ships in March, almost everyone that was in the market for the 64-bit chip will already have one.
Since the beginning of the year, Intel says it's shipped 6000 Itanics for evaluation and has just started a pilot programme under which selected large corporates - including Wells Fargo Bank and CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics - get systems to play with. |
| November 28, 2000 | |
Intel bets on Pentium 4's clock speedBy Dan Neel November 27, 2000 |
Independant benchmarking tests performed on Intel's new Pentium 4 processor indicate less-than-revolutionary performance, and an improved version is already set to arrive next year. Nevertheless, Intel is betting that record-breaking clock speed will provide the appeal for early adopters and ward off criticism from skeptics, according to those familiar with the technology.
Officially launched last week, the Pentium 4 chip from the Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is set to arrive in a number of high-end PCs and workstations from top-tier manufacturers such as Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM; Round Rock, Texas-based Dell; and Houston-based Compaq. |
Israel said to reduce offer for new Intel plantBy Bloomberg News November 27, 2000 |
Israel has offered to subsidize only 12.5 percent of Intel's proposed $3.5 billion semiconductor factory, instead of the 20 percent requested by the chipmaker, according to a report.
The government would supplement its offer by giving Intel a two year tax exemption on the new plant in the southern town of Kiryat Gat and a reduced tax rate for the following eight years, the daily Ha'aretz newspaper reported without citing sources. |
The Register Files |
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P4: Tom's Hardware has another rethinkBy Andrew Thomas November 27, 2000 |
A week ago, renowned hardware site Tom's Hardware Guide reported that they really quite liked Intel's new flagchip Pentium 4. But after trying some MPEG 4 encoding, took the view that P4 was pretty horrible compared with the opposition, being outperformed by both Athlon and
PIII.
A number of Tom's readers pointed out that it was unfair to judge the P4's performance using software not optimised to use the processor to its full potential and towards the end of last week, some dedicated folks at Intel Munich worked through the night to recompile the FlasK MPEG encoder to incorporate SSE2 code and mailed it to THG. |
| November 27, 2000 | |
Rambus orders lagging for Pentium 4 systemsBy Jack Robertson November 22, 2000 |
Intel Corp.'s launch of the Pentium 4 microprocessor may be the best hope yet for Direct Rambus DRAM to ramp into the market, but orders so far are less than encouraging.
Despite the fact that the new Intel CPU was designed to exclusively support Direct RDRAM, three of four major suppliers contacted said they were receiving few OEM orders. One vendor, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., said it increased fourth-quarter production of Rambus chips 20% sequentially to meet demand. However, in a series of interviews, executives at Hyundai Electronics, Infineon Technologies, and Micron Technology reported little activity among PC customers at a time when OEM plans to ship Pentium 4-based desktop systems would appear to require increased Rambus production. |
The Register Files |
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News sites panic over P4 glitchBy Andrew Thomas November 22, 2000 |
A number of news sites who should know better, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC and ZDNet, have run shock, horror stories claiming that the P4 shipped with the wrong drivers. Breathless parallels were drawn with the PIII 1.13GHz and Caminogate recalls.
Here are the facts: Early samples of Intel's D850GB mobo shipped with the first release of the BIOS, version 3.0. Most of these boards - our own test sample is an example - were delivered with an updated BIOS, version 4.0, on a CD. This included such vital corrections as a stuck keyboard numlock light. |
Tom's Hardware P4 'performs horribly' in MPEG 4By: Drew Cullen November 23, 2000 |
The trouble with reviews: they're a moving target. New benchmarks come out, new bios revisions, patches, drivers, extensions, and there's always, always new tests to do.
Witness Dr Thomas Pabst, the most famous hardware reviewer of all. On Monday, Pentium 4 launch day, Tom published a comprehensive rundown of the new Intel CPU platform. Gazillions of specs, comparisons and benchmarks later, he gave the chip the thumbs up, albeit with caveats over price and early performance. |
P4: total dog or really cooking?By Andrew Thomas November 24, 2000 |
Is Pentium 4 any good?
Some say no because its FPU doesn't have enough grunt. Others say yes because that FPU is optimised for 144 new SSE2 instructions and performs extremely well - when code has been optimised to use them. What's been missing up to now has been a before and after example of a real world application showing what difference SSE2 optimised code makes. |
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