Microprocessor Watch

Editor: Michael Slater
Contributors: Linley Gwennap, Keith Diefendorff, Peter Glaskowsky

In This Issue:

• VIA Buys Centaur
• Pentium III Hits 600 MHz
• Intel Deploys Celeron-500
• AMD Drops Low-Power Line
• Smarter Consumer Electronics in Offing
• Trimedia 1300 Arrives Late, Slow
• Resources: Microprocessor Forum Program Disclosed

VIA Buys Centaur

Rushing headlong into the x86 processor business, VIA technologies has signed a letter of commitment to acquire the Centaur Technology operation from IDT. This announcement comes on the heels of VIA's acquisition of Cyrix from National, giving it two different x86 product lines and design teams. If the deal is concluded, VIA will get Centaur's designs, design team, and patent portfolio.

Just how these two product lines will fit together remains to be seen; both companies were pursuing similar market spaces. Merging the two together is likely to prove challenging, but perhaps VIA executives felt having both companies would get them closer to critical mass. To be sure, Glenn Henry's design team at Centaur would be a strong addition to the Cyrix staff. VIA might proceed with WinChip 3 and 4 for the Socket 7 market while using Gobi to attack the higher-end Socket 370 space. VIA expects the same patent protection that it claims to have for the Cyrix designs (which it has yet to fully explain) to apply to the Centaur designs.

IDT has shipped WinChip 2 in only small quantities and has just sampled WinChip 3. It has already stopped producing the chips and will continue to fulfill orders only from inventory. --M.S.

Pentium III Hits 600 MHz

Intel has rolled out a 600-MHz version of Pentium III using unexpected headroom in its 0.25-micron manufacturing process. This speed grade will sustain the line until the 0.18-micron Coppermine begins shipping in November. At $824, the new chip is somewhat pricey compared with Intel's previous high-end chips. To make room, Intel cut the prices of its other Pentium II and Pentium III processors by about 12% from 5/16 prices but about 40% for the full quarter. The latest cuts bring a Pentium III-450 down to $230, leaving little room in the line for Pentium II. --L.G.

Intel Deploys Celeron-500

With Pentium III reaching 600 MHz, Intel was able to roll out a faster Celeron, pushing that part to 500 MHz. We don't expect faster Celerons this year, as the 0.25-micron Mendocino die is approaching its speed limit, and Intel wants to keep the Celeron platform stable during the back-to-school and holiday buying seasons. With the new 500-MHz part debuting at $177, the rest of the Celeron line slid down by about 10% from the 6/6 prices, or about 25% for the full quarter. Without faster parts entering the line this year, Celeron prices are likely to decrease only modestly through the end of the year, giving AMD some breathing room in the low-end market. --L.G.

AMD Drops Low-Power Line

Without fanfare, AMD has removed the low-power K6-2 from its price list in favor of the K6-2P. Like Intel's mobile processors, the low-power K6-2 stayed within the traditional 10-W power limit used in many notebook PCs, but the "P" version has blazed a trail by dissipating up to 16 W. AMD says its customers have gone overwhelmingly for the "P" part, and the company has gained 7% of the worldwide mobile market, according to our estimates. While AMD is exploiting a niche with the "P" part, most notebook vendors seem committed to the 10-W limit, and Intel has no plans to match AMD's "P" specification, although it could if AMD's niche gets much bigger. --L.G.

Smarter Consumer Electronics in Offing

The recent International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Society of the IEEE, featured a number of interesting presentations describing new chips that will enable a new generation of consumer-electronics products with tremendous processing power, high levels of integration or improved connectivity--or combinations of these features.

Not all of these announcements will turn into commercial devices, but they provide insight into the current state of the art in consumer-electronics technology. These chips will lead to a new generation of consumer-electronics products with far more computing power and better communication abilities than the PCs of just five years ago. Perhaps television programs won't get any better, but the television set itself certainly will.

The Digest of Technical Papers from the 1999 International Conference on Consumer Electronics is available for $146 from the IEEE Operations Center (#99CH36277). The center may be reached at 800.678.4333. More information on ICCE is available online at http://www.icce.org. --P.N.G.

Trimedia 1300 Arrives Late, Slow

Philips has begun sampling the TM-1300, the newest member of the TriMedia family of media processors. Though Philips promised the part would sample by the end of 1998 at speeds up to 180 MHz (see MPR 10/26/98, p. 33), it was late to arrive and is initially available at only 143 MHz.

Philips says it will sample a 166-MHz version of the TM-1300 in the third quarter, followed by the 180-MHz part in 1Q00. The 143- and 166-MHz parts will enter production in 4Q99. Philips hasn't announced a production schedule for the 180-MHz part.

The TM-1300 is manufactured in a 0.25-micron process and sells for as little as $35 in large quantities. That's about 40% less than its predecessor, the TM-1100. As it has with previous TriMedia products, Philips will sell the TM-1300 as a video processor for editing, conferencing, and security systems as well as for advanced set-top boxes. --P.N.G.

Resources: Microprocessor Forum Agenda Disclosed

Full details on the 1999 Microprocessor Forum program are available now at http://www.MDRonline.com/now/mpf9. The program includes:

-- Keynote presentations from John Hennessy, cofounder of MIPS and Provost at Stanford University, and Ken Kutaragi, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment

-- Processors for workstations and servers, including details on Intel's Merced, IBM's dual-CPU Power4, simultaneous multithreading technology for future Alpha processors, the highly-parallel SPARC V, and AMD's first Athlon processor for workstations and servers

-- Microprocessors for PCs, including Intel's performance enhancements in Intel's Coppermine, Rise's Socket 370 processor, and the next-generation PowerPC chip

-- Devices for accelerating 3D, multimedia, and network processing, including the first PC accelerator from startup ArtX, Mitsubishi's second-generation VolumePro, Fujitsu's FR500, Sun's new MAJC processor, and a radical new chip from startup Cradle Technologies

-- Leading-edge DSPs from Massana, Zoran, and Analog Devices

-- New embedded processors, including National's information appliance on a chip, the SH-5 from Hitachi and STM, a 64-bit core from MIPS, and a superscalar embedded PowerPC core from IBM

-- Panel discussions on PC system architecture, server system architecture, and the future of microprocessor design

In addition, there are six one-day seminars presented by Microprocessor Report's analysts:

-- Processors for PCs: A Business and Strategy Perspective

-- Comparing PC Processor Designs

-- Intel's Merced and IA-64: Technology and Market Forecast

-- 3D for PCs: Chips, Choices, and Challenges

-- Trends in Microprocessors for Embedded Applications

-- Processors for DSP: Architectures, Applications, and Vendors

This promises to be the year's premier event for hearing about next year's processors, updating your view of the competitive landscape, and networking with your peers. Don't miss it! Review the full program and register today at http://www.MDRonline.com/now/mpf9, or call 800.700.4004 or 707.824.4004.