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| Top Stories for January 5, 2001 (details below) | |
| eWEEK | Lousy demand spoils Pentium 4 debut |
| Electronic Buyers' News | Rambus Wins ITC Ruling |
| C/Net | Transmeta to help AMD push into servers |
| TechWeb News | AMD to use Transmeta's processor as prototype tool, sources said |
| ZD Net News | Pondering an AMD-Transmeta merger |
| C/Net | Chipmaker Via's sales expected to beat expectations |
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The Register Files |
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| The Register | Intel roadmap shredder in OverDriveTM mode |
| The Register | AMD notebooks face uphill struggle |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of December 31, 2000 |
Older News |
| January 5, 2001 | |
Lousy demand spoils Pentium 4 debutBy Ken Popovich January 4, 2001 |
Intel Corp.'s newest attraction, the high-powered Pentium 4 processor, flopped in its debut in U.S. retail stores, according to preliminary sales figures.
For December, the processor's first full month on the market, the 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz Pentium 4 appeared in only about 1 percent of all PCs sold at U.S. retail, according to data compiled by the market research firm PC Data. Direct-order sales were not included in the figures. By comparison, the Pentium III garnered 8 percent of unit sales in its first full month after its introduction in 1999, according to the research firm. |
Rambus Wins ITC RulingBy Jack Robertson January 3, 2001 |
In a year-end action, the International Trade Commission freed Rambus Inc. from earlier restrictions on new cases that might be filed with the commission.
Last fall, ITC Administrative Law Judge Sidney Harris had accused Rambus Inc., Mountain View, Calif. of impermissible judge shopping, and ruled any future complaints the company might file on alleged SDRAM patent violations must be assigned to his court. Harris charged that Rambus (stock: RMBS) sought to withdraw its case soon after it had been assigned to his court. |
Transmeta to help AMD push into serversBy Michael Kanellos and Mary Jo Foley January 3, 2001 |
Advanced Micro Devices plans to take on Intel in the server market, enlisting one of its own competitors to help out.
Under a complex deal yet to be announced, sources say AMD is sending to software developers computers that run on competitor Transmeta's Crusoe processor and contain a special version of Transmeta's "code-morphing" software. The computers are designed to run a program that simulates AMD's upcoming server chip, called Sledgehammer, the sources said. |
AMD to use Transmeta's processor as prototype tool, sources saidBy Mark Hachman January 3, 2001 |
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will reportedly use Transmeta Corp.'s code-morphing software to prototype its own forthcoming Sledgehammer chip, according to industry sources.
The agreement solidifies the relationship between the two companies, reported last August by Electronic Buyers' News. AMD president Hector Ruiz said then that the two companies were in talks concerning a technology exchange (see Aug. 22 story). |
Pondering an AMD-Transmeta mergerBy Larry Dignan January 4, 2001 |
Advanced Micro Devices and Transmeta are planning to work together to give Intel fits in the server market. But they shouldn't stop there. The companies should merge.
Watch AMD's partnership with Transmeta closely -- it may be just a sign of things to come. Under a complex deal yet to be announced, sources told CNet Networks that AMD (NYSE: AMD) is sending to software developers computers that run on competitor Transmeta's (Nasdaq: TMTA) Crusoe processor and contain a special version of Transmeta's "code-morphing" software. The computers are designed to run a program that simulates AMD's upcoming server chip, called Sledgehammer, the sources said. |
Chipmaker Via's sales expected to beat expectationsBy Bloomberg News January 4, 2001 |
Via Technology, one of Taiwan's top chipmakers, says its 2000 revenue will likely beat previous predictions.
In August, the company said it expected revenue for the year 2000 to reach $909 million. Taiwan press reports estimated Via's revenue at $936 million for 2000 following a December sales report that the company distributed this week. "We still have to define the official figure," said Manuela Mercandelli, a Via spokeswoman. But "the figure might be close to that." |
The Register Files |
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Intel roadmap shredder in OverDriveTM modeBy Mike Magee January 4, 2001 |
Chip giant Intel has entered the New Year by hastily revising roadmaps it was showing its customers only three weeks back, in a bid to throttle up its push to the Pentium 4 and shift stocks of existing semiconductors.
As revealed earlier this week, Intel prematurely introduced the 1.3GHz Pentium 4 slated for the end of the month, although published reports said that firms like Dell were already set to rock and roll with the chip from day one. |
AMD notebooks face uphill struggleBy Mike Magee January 3, 2001 |
Sources close to AMD's plans have said that design time and the cost of making notebooks using its upcoming mobile microprocessors mean that many tier one vendors have decided to stick with Intel for the time being.
Designing notebooks with the AMD processor is far harder than making desktops using similar technology, with issues like heat and power complicating the task. |
| January 3, 2001 | |
Minor bug lingers in Pentium 4 chipsetBy Michael Kanellos December 27, 2000 |
A bug associated with the Pentium 4 that delayed Intel's introduction of the chip by a month is still with us, but the company and PC makers have worked to contain the potential damage.
A bug--or, in chipmaker parlance, errata--in the chipset for the Pentium 4 can degrade performance when video or other graphical data is processed through a PCI bus, an internal channel for data, Intel has stated. Because of the bug, consumers may experience slow processing if they connect a second monitor or an additional graphics card through one of the PCI expansion slots in a Pentium 4 computer. |
Rambus Licenses Memory To MitsubishiJanuary 2, 2001 |
Rambus Inc. started the year on a high note on the news that Mitsubishi Electric Corp. has signed a patent license agreement for SDRAM, Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM memory and controllers that directly interface with these types of memory.
Mitsubishi is the seventh company to sign such an agreement, following Samsung, NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Oki and Elpida. |
The Register Files |
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Intel discombobulates its customersBy Mike Magee December 19, 2000 |
Like 'em or loathe 'em, you got to admire the way Intel manages not only to cheese off PC manufacturers but its distributors and dealers too, and all at the same time.
That, at least, is the message we must draw from two different slides, one for the channel and one for its original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) we saw over a pint of cider last week. Putting the two together, it seems that Chipzilla is pulling the irons out of the fire in a bid to ensure that the year 2001 will not be its third annus horribilis in a row. |
Pentium IIIs ready themselves for deathBy Mike Magee December 22, 2000 |
In all the excitement of the 1GHz Pentium III 40 per cent price drop on the 28th of January and the Pentium 4 prices precipitating these, we almost forgot the other members of the Pentium III family.
But not quite. These are the ones which are gradually moving off the roadmap as Intel proliferates the Pentium 4 into the mainstream and performance sectors of the market. Intel calls them off-roadmap processors. |
Chipset spectre rattles Intel's P4By Mike Magee December 28, 2000 |
Our old buddy Mike Kanellos is reporting on both Cnet and ZD Net that Intel still hasn't fixed a problem with the 850 chipset that caused the launch of the Pentium 4 to be delayed earlier this year.
But, quoting Intel, the report suggests that although this erratum not a bug caused the delay to the original schedule of the Pentium 4, it is unlikely to pose serious problems for users of the spanking new microprocessor. |
Pentium 4 high risk strategy for IntelBy Mike Magee December 29, 2000 |
Many of our lovely readers have drawn our attention to this piece at
emulators.com, a lengthy diatribe about the Pentium 4 written by one Darek
Mihocka.
Essentially, it looks at the Pentium 4 and its architecture in quite some detail and you can read for yourself what Citizen Mihocka has to say, although it's possible to gauge the general tenor of the piece from its opening paragraph which reads: "According to Gateway's web site, the Pentium 4 is 'the most powerful processor available for your PC'. Unfortunately for most computer users, it's simply not true." |
Pentium 4 Foster may sink the ItanicBy Mike Magee December 28, 2000 |
When Intel set up the IA-64 project down there in Satan Clara, it sparked off quite an internal fight at the chip firm, as we reported at the time, passim.
Intel poured a heap of resources into the Merced (soon to be the Itanic) platform, and that caused quite a few hackles to be raised amongst the Willamette-Foster team, who wondered just why their own company was setting about the IA-64 project in just such a fashion. |
Intel's Itanic, McKinley chips go misty eyedBy Mike Magee December 22, 2000 |
Intel has decided to give it a rest on hard and fast dates for the release of its 64-bit Itanium and McKinley microprocessors, and instead will carry on with pilot schemes for the chips.
At last August's Intel Developer Forum, the firm came under criticism for pushing back the date the Itanium was supposed to launch, with this organ suggesting it abandon hard and fast dates for this species of chip. |
Millennium ends with Rambus whimperBy Mike Magee December 29, 2000 |
The International Trade Commission (ITC) has now formally terminated its investigation into allegations that Hyundai had violated US law by importing alleged patent-busting memory into the country.
Rambus Inc, a company based in Mountain View, California, made the initial complaint. The move follows Rambus' withdrawal of the complaint earlier this year, but now the judges have formally notified all the parties concerned by first class mail but if any of the parties for some reason or other have a problem with snail mail, have also posted their decision on this Web site. |
Intel denies Rambus legal action - at lastBy Mike Magee January 2, 2001 |
An interview on CNBC with UBS Warburg financial analyst Gregory Mischou seemed to suggest that Intel was taking legal action against
Rambus.
But, late tonight UK time, Intel representative Chuck Molloy took time out from his busy schedule to call The Register while we were having our evening meal. Molloy said there was absolutely no truth that Intel was sueing Rambus -- indeed he was surprised that the question had arisen. He had seen the CNBC story, but as you can read below, not without the incriminating paragraph. |
Caminogate shuffles off mortal coilBy Mike Magee December 22, 2000 |
The 820 chipset, formerly code-named Camino, will be relegated to a backwater by the Intel Corp from the end of this year, as the firm's aggressive Pentium 4 strategy kicks in.
It will not be sadly missed, especially by Intel itself, as it was defects in this chipset which gave the semiconductor company several reasons not to be cheerful for nearly two years. |
Qualcomm to invest in VIA?By Drew Cullen December 30, 2000 |
Qualcomm, the CDMA chip IP wonderstock, is poised to take a five per cent stake in VIA, the Taiwanese chipset designer, according to a report in The Commercial Times of Taiwan, cited by Reuters by way of Total Telecom (yes, yes we know this is a wee convoluted).
VIA declined to comment on whether the two companies are in talks. |
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