The Register Files

Collected By Robert R. Collins

Week of January 7, 2001

Older News

Intel aims at Transmeta with new chips

By John G. Spooner

January 9, 2001
ZDNet News

When it comes to mobile processors for notebooks, there's low power and there's ultra-low power. Now, Intel has both.

The Santa Clara, Calif., chipmaker plans to power down its 2001 mobile processor offerings with a slew of new low-power chips.

Intel and Broadcom: Strange bedfellows?

By Ken Popovich

January 11, 2001
eWEEK

The unlikely turn of events comes as Broadcom, a maker of high-speed communications circuits, announced a $1 billion deal this week to buy ServerWorks Inc., a company that makes chip sets for workstations, network servers and storage devices.

Intel faces down bad results at short notice
Chip giant rides negative wave of its major investments

By Stuart Lauchlan

January 11, 2001
CBR Online

At the start of December, Intel issued a statement warning analysts that its fourth-quarter revenue would be at best flat, but might equally drop below the $8.7 billion reported in the third quarter. The company said its business was weak across all geographic regions and all segments of the PC business, with consumer PC sales in China and Japan being the only bright spot. "As it has turned out, the economy worldwide appears to be slowing more quickly than we anticipated," said Andy Bryant, chief financial officer.

ATI strikes broad licensing deal with Intel

By Reuters

January 11, 2001
San Jose Mercury News

Under the arrangement, ATI, the world's No. 1 supplier of graphics chips, and Intel Corp., the world's largest maker of microprocessors, are each granted rights to certain patents owned by the other company.

Markham, Ontario-based ATI has also negotiated the right to build integrated chip sets for Intel microprocessor platforms. Financial terms of the deal were not announced.

ATI can make chip sets for Intel processors under licensing pact

January 10, 2001
Semiconductor Business News

The new agreement will permit ATI to integrate its Radeon graphics technology into chip sets for Intel's central processors, said Dave Orton, president and chief operating officer at the Markham, Ontario-based company.

Reports & rumors heard in the chip industry

January 10, 2001
Silicon Strategies

• Latest Athlon outruns Pentium 4 
• Intel coming out with new low-power MPUs
• AMD, Taiwan foundry may jointly build 300-mm fab
• DRAMs continue to fall in January

Rambus may withhold synchronous interface patents from litigants

By Bolaji Ojo

January 9, 2001
Electronic Buyers' News

"The companies that litigate against us may pay higher royalty fees, and if they lose [in court] they may not get [a] Rambus patent," said Gary Harmon, Rambus' chief financial officer, at the third annual Needham & Co. Inc. Growth Conference in New York.

The Register Files

Microprocessor Report slams Intel P4

By Mike Magee

January 10, 2001
The Register

According to a piece written by senior analyst Peter Glaskowsky, hands-on tests show that despite the AMD clock speed being less than Intel's P4, typical systems perform 12 per cent faster even given the  fact that Chipzilla's systems are armed with fast Rambus memory.

AMD looks for love while Intel gets hot and sweaty

By Lucy Sherriff

January 9, 2001
The Register

It has launched a search for its perfect partner for its long-anticipated new 300mm-wafer fab, which it says is in the advanced stages of planning.

Intel intros "Mystery Shopper" plan

By Mike Magee

January 11, 2001
The Register

Many thanks to AMD Zone for Intel's latest cunning plan to help shop assistants to answer this tricky questions shoppers might put.

According to the hardware site, Intel has recently started something called the Mystery Shop programme, which will run until early March.

Intel, ATI settle lawsuit with patent exchange

By Tony Smith

January 10, 2001
The Register

The deal primarily gives ATI the right to create chip-sets that support Intel's CPUs. ATI has been pursuing this area for some time, essentially to build a business serving low-end PC makers and Net appliance manufacturers. The scheme centres on providing chips that integrate audio and graphics technology with North Bridge functionality.

Xbox future may depend on Rambus lawyers

By Mike Magee

January 11, 2001
The Register

Not only did it cause a furore yesterday, when it pointed out that Athlons at 1.2GHz run faster than Pentium 4s at 1.5GHz, but the same e-newsletter suggests that Microsoft's Xbox will use DDR (double  data rate) memory from Micron, one of the three naughty Dramurai currently in litigation with Rambus Ink.

Intel's roadmap changed again?

By Mike Magee

January 11, 2001
The Register

We know for certain from recent communications to its distributor and dealer panel that Intel is still hell-bent on making a heap of price changes at the end of the month, but, according to Computerwoche yesterday, Intel is likely to annouce its low voltage (LV) Pentium III 500 and its Celeron LV 500 as early as next week.

Is Intel shooting itself in the foot with gadget strategy?

By Ali Asadullah

January 8, 2001
Upside Today

The charge: Needlessly going gadget

The prosecution: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury here's what you don't do: "You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit in the wind, you don't pull the mask off the ole Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with Jim."

Oh, and let's add to that, you don't play in a market where margins can be 35 percent at best when you stand atop a market where margins can go as high as 80 percent. But for some reason, the requisite fear and trepidation that should grip any company planning to dabble in consumer appliances seem absent from Intel's strategy to move into MP3 players and other gadgets.

Intel chip trips up Linux install

By Ed Scannell

January 8, 2001
Infoworld.com

Not only did a market report come out confirming the chip's lethargic retail sales, but a handful of top Linux operating systems distributors said their products do not install cleanly because they are unable to identify the chip upon installation.

The installation problem centers around Intel changing its CPUID (CPU identification) model numbering, catching many Linux distributors unaware. The result of this change is that shortly after users begin installation the process is suspended.

California power crunch changes Intel expansion plans

By Bloomberg News

January 8, 2001
C/Net

"Would I OK the expansion of anything in Silicon Valley right now? Not a chance," Barrett said. "Will I build my new facilities in Oregon and Arizona and New Mexico and Ireland, and even Hudson, Mass., and Israel, where I can get an ensured supply of power? Absolutely, yes, and that's where my expansion is going."

My enemies enemy is my friend: the AMD and Transmeta 64bit alliance

January 8, 2001
IT-Director.com

Although spokespoeple from AMD, Transmeta and Microsoft, which presumably is the software environment with most to gain from 64bit x86, have refused to comment, the story is a nice public relations coup for the marketing wings of both companies. It was quickly picked up by the industry press, having, as it does, the right ingredients: unsubstantiated sources, quiet alliances between the market under-dogs and new unproven technologies.

The Register Files

AMD calls on Transmeta to help crack Sledgehammer

By Tony Smith

January 5, 2001
The Register

The deal centres on Transmeta's code-morphing technology - software that converts chunks of object code created for processor A into chip B's native machine language. AMD's plan appears to be to use Transmeta's scheme to map 32-bit x86 instructions onto Sledgehammer's own 64-bit code.