Microprocessor Watch

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

Special Seminar Invitation: Michael Slater on PC Processors

Michael Slater, founder of Microprocessor Report and Microprocessor Forum and editor of this newsletter, will present his seminar "Processors for PCs: A Business and Strategy Perspective" on November 4 at the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara. This highly regarded seminar will be fully updated with the latest Coppermine and Athlon disclosures, as well as issues regarding the rollout of RDRAM. The seminar runs from 9 am to 5:30 pm; registration is $795. For more details or to register, see http://www.MDRonline.com/dm or call 800.700.4004 or 707.824.4004.

In This Issue:

• Rise Revisits Roadmap
• Cradle's "Universal Microsystem" Is Most Flexible Chip Ever
• Editorial: Intel Commoditizes 3D Graphics
• Resources: Processor Options for Digital TV
• Resources: Deep Impact. Armageddon. Comdex.
• Resources: Micro-32 Symposium, Workshops, and Tutorials
• Resources: Wear Your Hard Drive on Your Sleeve

Rise Revisits Roadmap

Rise Technology is revisiting its roadmap (see MPR 5/31/99, p. 15) in light of the new competitive landscape that has resulted from Via's acquisition of Cyrix and Centaur. The company withdrew its presentation from Microprocessor Forum, where it had planned to describe a Socket 370 chip code-named Tiger. It is now reconsidering whether to focus its resources on Tiger or on the mP6 II, a Socket 7 device with on-chip L2 cache.

Rise had samples of its original mP6 rated at PR333 and PR366 (250 MHz) in a 0.25-micron process but decided not to ship these chips. Instead, it is now sampling these speeds using 0.18-micron silicon and is beginning to ramp up production. The company expects to have PR400 and PR433 chips in production by the end of the year. Pricing for the PR333 and PR366 chips is $43 and $48, respectively.

With Intel's bottom-of-the-line Celeron now at 400 MHz, Rise's current offerings place it below the bottom of the desktop PC market. Company officials say most of the customers are in Asia, with interest coming from makers of consumer notebooks and mininotebooks who are attracted to the chip's low power consumption; the mP6-366 consumes a maximum of 5 W from its 2-V supply. Company officials also indicated that they are receiving strong interest from makers of Linux-based PCs, set-top boxes, and thin clients. --M.S.

Cradle's "Universal Microsystem" Is Most Flexible Chip Ever, But Is the Market Ready?

Imagine that you want to design a full-custom processor to meet the exact needs of your application. You don't have time to design an ASIC, and you don't want to learn a hardware description language like Verilog or VHDL. A conventional microprocessor would be too slow, and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) can't run your C code. You can't even find a media processor with the right I/O interfaces. What you want is an off- the-shelf chip that can be programmed with the software and hardware elements of your design. You are the target market for Cradle Technologies' new Universal Microsystem (UMS).

The UMS, announced at last week's Microprocessor Forum, combines a parallel array of microprocessor and signal-processor cores with programmable logic and protocol engines to handle all I/O. A simple DRAM controller is the only hardwired peripheral.

If it is truly faster, easier, and cheaper to implement sophisticated chip designs in a UMS device than with existing alternatives, Cradle's success is virtually guaranteed. If, however, the complex UMS mix of processors and programmable logic is not as easy to configure as Cradle promises, the full potential of the new architecture may never be realized. Cradle hopes to gain a share of the competitive networking and consumer- electronics businesses, and it may also be able to earn a portion of the low-volume but high-margin field-programmable gate array business. It won't be easy for Cradle to break into any of these markets, but its Universal Microsystem could be the right tool for the job. --P.N.G

Editorial: Intel Commoditizes 3D Graphics

With the introduction of the 810E chip set, Intel has pushed integrated graphics from the low end to the mainstream of its product line, leaving discrete 3D accelerators for only the most performance-conscious users. By next spring, the majority of new PCs are likely to be using a chip set with integrated 3D graphics--most with Intel's name on them. This represents a huge change from early this year, when nearly all PCs contained a discrete 3D-graphics chip.

While integration has been a powerful force in PC design for years, this transition is unusual: in many cases, PC users will see a decrease in performance when comparing the new integrated parts with older designs. The 3D core built into Intel's 810 and 810E is competitive with the least expensive discrete 3D chips available today but behind the chips typically used in midrange PCs. The success of Intel's integrated devices indicates how few OEMs and PC buyers care about 3D performance.

Intel has helped foster this attitude in the consumer market with the creation of the Celeron brand. Intel believes that anyone buying a low-end PC cares only about megahertz, not actual performance. The success of the Celeron processor, with its slow front-side bus and lack of SSE, substantiates this belief. Buyers in this segment don't seem to care that the 810 chip set has limited 3D performance. They just like the big megahertz number on the CPU.

More sophisticated consumers are looking for good deals on Pentium III systems, which can be found for less than $1,000. Many of these less expensive Pentium III products will be switching to the 810E in the near future. This change will drive some consumers--particularly gamers--to move up to an 820 system that will probably come with a more powerful, and more expensive, Intel processor.

Most PCs are still bought by businesses, large and small, and few business buyers are interested in 3D performance. There are still no mainstream business applications that have 3D components, and nothing seems likely to appear in the near future. Thus, most business buyers are happy with "checkbox" 3D--as long as the PC has a 3D accelerator, they're happy. For these businesses, the 810 and 810E fit the bill, and carry the Intel brand to boot. Some business PC buyers have a bit more foresight. Seeking a four-year lifetime for their PCs, they don't want to ignore an area such as 3D performance that could become critical during that period. In addition, the incremental cost of a more powerful system is a small fraction of the total cost of ownership (TCO) during that system's life. These buyers will be well served by seeking out 820-based systems with moderately priced but powerful 3D accelerators available from a variety of chip makers.

Intel's integration strategy leaves these 3D chip makers to compete in a shrinking market for discrete graphics accelerators. Naturally, the biggest impact has been on market leaders ATI and S3, which have been the vendors of choice for low-cost and midrange 3D chips. These are the very sockets being eliminated by the 810 and 810E. As a result, Intel is likely to become the leading vendor of 3D-graphics accelerators within the next few months.

Intel's flank attack exposes a key fallacy of the 3D market: that performance is the most important factor. Sure, there are a bunch of gamers and a few professional users who care, but without mainstream 3D applications, most PC makers aren't putting a priority on 3D performance. When several vendors offer chips with similar features, OEMs will naturally choose ones with the best performance in their price class. But by integrating 3D into the chip set, Intel has sidestepped this comparison and reduced system cost.

Over time, emerging applications will increase mainstream interest in 3D performance. (Indeed, Intel itself is promoting some of these applications, hoping to boost sales of its high-end CPUs.) Intel must be careful that its brand name does not become associated with inadequate 3D performance. It's quite possible, however, that emerging applications will be satisfied by whatever level of commodity 3D Intel can deliver at the time, making moot any competitive performance issues.

Other 3D vendors must figure out how to compete in this new world. Creating their own integrated chip sets, as Nvidia has done and S3 is doing, is the obvious approach, but these vendors will find it difficult to displace the 810 family, given Intel's entrenched position in the chip-set market. The high-end 3D market remains viable and active, but Intel's integration strategy has quickly halved the available market for third-party 3D chips.

If this trend continues, the discrete 3D chip will go the way of the math coprocessor. A high-end niche will remain for quite some time, but to be successful, 3D chip makers must counter Intel's inevitable integration efforts. --L.G.

Resources: Processor Options for Digital TV

Microprocessor Report's November 4 dinner meeting features a presentation by Cees Hartring, VP and GM of Philips' TriMedia business line, and Gert Slavenberg, fellow and cheif architect of the TriMedia processor, titled "Processor Options for Digital TV Applications." The dinner presentation will describe the requirements for digital TV processing and then review and compare a number of processor options. Preliminary information will be given on Philips' next-generation media processor, currently in development, which will boost performance by more than an order of magnitude.

Microprocessor Report dinner meetings are a great opportunity to network with your colleagues, enjoy a good meal, and hear about the latest developments. Registration is only $99 (less if you also attend one of the seminars also offered that day). See http://www.MDRonline.com/dm for more details and to register, or call 800.700.4004 or 707.824.4004.

Resources: Deep Impact. Armageddon. Comdex.

An enormous inert mass is hurtling toward us, and nothing short of an atomic blast can turn it away. Yes, it's once again time for Fall Comdex, "celebrating" its 20th year in Las Vegas on November 15-19. Not just trapped inside Windows, the show this year is paired with the Linux Business Expo. The enormous gathering features the usual keynotes (Gates, McNealy, Chambers, and Mr. Linux himself), the usual slew of product introductions, and the slogan "the new TechnoMillennium." Registration fees range from $1,095 for the conference to $1,999 (get it?) for the full "Millennium Passport." Register before 11/5 to weasel into the exhibits for free. For more information, access http://www.comdex.com.

If you can take some time out from the show floor and the private meetings, there's something else worth attending at Comdex: Michael Slater will chair a conference session on Wednesday morning, November 17, at 10:15, titled Future Watch: PC2020 -- Beyond Faster and Cheaper. With panelists Jeffrey Harrow (Compaq), Phil Hester (IBM), Gerald Holzhammer, (Intel), Scott Smyers (Sony US Research Labs), and Carl Stork (Microsoft), a lively and insightful discussion is all but assured.

Resources: Micro-32 Symposium, Workshops, and Tutorials

If something more thoughtful than Comdex--and a destination more interesting than Las Vegas--appeals to you, attend the thirty- second annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture, to be held November 15-18 in Haifa, Israel. The symposium has long provided one of the premier forums for discussing and debating issues relating to instruction-level parallelism, compilation techniques, and microarchitectures. On Monday, November 15, you can choose from three workshops and tutorials, covering feedback-directed optimization, media processors and DSPs, and low-power processor design. The three- day symposium on November 16-18, keynoted by Intel's Fred Pollack, covers a wide range of current microarchitectural topics presented by many leading academic researchers and a few architects from industry. To get more information or to register, access http://huron.cs.ucdavis.edu/Micro32.

Resources: Wear Your Hard Drive on Your Sleeve

If clipping a cell phone, a pager, and a Palm computer to your belt doesn't make you feel enough like Batman, pretty soon you'll be able to wear a full-blown PC, too. The future of wearable computing is explored in a fascinating white paper, the result of a study conducted at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The researchers drew upon their backgrounds in anthropology and industrial design to study spaces on the human body where solid and flexible forms can rest without obstructing free motion. The paper is available for free on the Web. Download it in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format at http://panopticon.edrc.cmu.edu/design/wearability/front.html.