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Microprocessor
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| Top Stories for August 1, 2001 (details below) | |
| Semiconductor Business News | Intergraph files suit against Intel over 64-bit Itanium processor patents |
| C/Net | Intergraph: Intel Itanium violates patent |
| EBN | Intel move heightens war between Rambus and DDR |
| EE Times | Intel content to let Rambus sink or swim, Barrett says |
| Semiconductor Business News | Intel kills plan to use SVG's 193-nm scanners in production due to delays |
| Semiconductor Business News | Mobile Pentium III revs to 1.13 GHz; three new chip sets add support |
| ZD Net UK | Approval near on Intel PC-overhaul plan |
| Semiconductor Business News | Intel and TI license ARM's upcoming 'v6' core for future processor products |
| Truths...from the rumor mill | |
| The Register | Italian Appeal Court rejects Rambus' request for Micron plant shutdown |
| The Inquirer | Rambus outlines futures |
| The Inquirer | AMD readies notebook speed bump |
| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of July 29, 2001 |
Older News |
| August 1, 2001 | |
Intergraph files suit against Intel over 64-bit Itanium processor patentsJuly 31, 2001 |
Intergraph Corp. late today announced that it has filed
another suit against Intel Corp., this time charging that
Intel's 64-bit Itanium processor technology infringes upon
Intergraph's RISC-based MPU patents. Intergraph's suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, claims that Intel has infringed upon two patents that defines key aspects of parallel instruction computing (PIC). Developed by Intergraph's former Advanced Processor Division, the PIC technology is alleged to be an essential component in Intel's new Itanium chip. |
Intergraph: Intel Itanium violates patentJuly 31, 2001 |
Workstation manufacturer Intergraph has filed a new patent
lawsuit against Intel, claiming that the world's largest
semiconductor company used patented Intergraph technology in
its new line of Itanium high-end server processors. Itanium, based on the IA-64 platform developed by Intel and Hewlett-Packard, was officially launched earlier this year after delays and testing. It uses the EPIC (explicitly parallel instruction computing) instruction set, which the lawsuit claims conflicts with 1993 Intergraph patents relating to instruction routing and parallelism. |
Intel move heightens war between Rambus and DDRBy Jack Robertson July 30, 2001 |
More blows rained down last week in the slugfest between
Direct Rambus DRAM and double-data-rate SDRAM, with Intel
Corp. clearly in the middle. Intel caused much of the excitement by confirming that it is ending its Pentium 4 rebate plan and phasing out an incentive program under which it had been bundling Pentium 4 microprocessors and Rambus memory for white-box PC sales. An Intel spokesman said the memory IC discounts were no longer needed to promote the Pentium 4 family because Direct RDRAM prices have fallen sharply in the last several months. |
Intel content to let Rambus sink or swim, Barrett saysBy Mike Clendenin July 30, 2001 |
Intel Corp. chief executive officer Craig Barrett signaled on
Monday (July 30) that he was quite content to let synchronous
DRAMs and not Rambus DRAMs serve as the dominant memory in
Pentium 4 systems. "The consumer will decide" the fate of Rambus, Barrett said at the beginning of a two-day visit to Taiwan. In the short term, it seems like motherboard makers have already decided which memory they prefer. Taiwan's top-tier motherboard makers, such as Asustek Computer Inc. and Gigabyte Technology Co., estimate that SDRAM-based boards will represent 70 percent to 80 percent of Pentium 4 system shipments by the end of the year. |
Intel kills plan to use SVG's 193-nm scanners in production due to delaysBy Mark LaPedus July 31, 2001 |
Intel Corp. has scrapped its production plans to use 193-nm,
argon-fluoride (ArF) lithography tools from Silicon Valley
Group Inc. because of delays in tool shipments. The decision,
confirmed by an Intel official in an interview with SBN,
apparently kills a $100 million tool order. The decision is also a major setback for ASM Lithography, which acquired SVG for $1.6 billion in stock two months ago to gain access to advanced scanner technologies and Intel's lithography business (see May 22 story). ASML officials in the Netherlands refused to comment on Intel's decision. |
Mobile Pentium III revs to 1.13 GHz; three new chip sets add supportJuly 30, 2001 |
At a press event here today, Intel Corp. officially rolled out
its awaited 0.13-micron Pentium III processor-M series with
speeds up to 1.13-GHz at a price of $625 each in quantities of
1,000. In addition, Intel introduced three new 830 chip sets designed to take advantage of the new mobile Pentium III processor-M performance and low power characteristics. The Intel 830MP chip set supports external graphics and is available today, said the company. Later this year, Intel said it plans to ship the 830M chip set with high-performance integrated graphics. The 830MG chip set will also be available later this year with integrated graphics for lower cost systems, Intel said. |
Approval near on Intel PC-overhaul planStephen Shankland July 31, 2001 |
A key industry group has all but approved an Intel technology
to overhaul the innards of PCs, with full consent expected on
Friday. Currently, everything from modems to network cards plugs into computers using the widespread PCI (Peripheral Components Interconnect) standard. But increasing the speed of PCI will become prohibitively expensive, and engineers have been searching for an alternative that will let computers keep pace with ever-faster CPUs. |
Intel and TI license ARM's upcoming 'v6' core for future processor productsJuly 30, 2001 |
ARM Ltd. here today announced an extension of its RISC
processor-licensing pact with Intel Corp. to include a
next-generation ARMv6 architecture and other core designs. The
Cambridge company today also announced a licensing agreement
for ARMv6 cores with Texas Instruments Inc., which will use
the low-power consuming RISC processor core in chip sets for
2.5 and 3G cellular phone handsets. Full technical details of the new ARMv6 architecture will be presented at Microprocessor Forum 2001 during October in San Jose. Terms of the licensing pacts with Intel and TI were not disclosed by ARM. |
| Truths...from the rumor mill | |
Italian Appeal Court rejects Rambus' request for Micron plant shutdownBy Tony Smith July 26, 2001 |
The Italian Court of Appeal has thrown out Rambus' motion to
have production of SDRAM suspended at Micron's memory plant in
Avezano, Italy. The two companies' next meeting in the Italian court is unlikely to take place before next year, by which time the two will have faced each other in the US court. Rambus had asked the Italian court to grant it an injunction against Micron, preventing it from producing SDRAM until its allegations of patent infringement made against Micron have been judged. When the court rejected its request, Rambus took its case to the appeals court. |
Rambus outlines futuresBy Mike Magee July 30, 2001 |
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP) firm Rambus bit the bullet last
week and also tipped up at Bert McComas' Platform 2001
conference, indicating we don't know what, but it's pretty
sure they wouldn't have been there this time last year. Billy Garrett, manager of strategic marketing at the Los Altos firm, outlined the RIMM module roadmap for the next year - a year which still sees Rambus memory at the high performance end of the Pentium 4 desktop. |
AMD readies notebook speed bumpBy Mike Magee July 31, 2001 |
AS WE REPORTED at the end of June, we do not expect La Intella
to hold the max speed on X86 notebooks for very much longer. AMD sources told us at the end of June that the firm will release a 1.2GHz Athlon mobile "shortly after" the launch of the Tualatin .13 micron notebook chips Intel announced yesterday. Further, the world+dog is still waiting for the introduction of the 1GHz Duron that's been out in the wild for some weeks now. |
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