| October 9, 1998 |
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By Brooke Crothers
October 8, 1998
C/Net
|
Intel detailed a road map for upcoming
microprocessors that will extend variations of its
current technology well into the next century and range
up to 1000 MHz in speed. Most prominently, technology
code-named Foster will represent a new processor
"microarchitecture," according to Fred Pollack,
director of measurement, architecture, and planning and
Intel's microprocessor products group.
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By Michael Kanellos
October 9, 1998
C/Net
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Advanced Micro Devices will provide the
details surrounding its next generation microprocessor,
the K7, next week at the Microprocessor Forum in San
Jose, California, and in all likelihood ignite a debate
on whether the company has come up with a way to expand
into the performance computing market. Future chip
technologies from Intel, National Semiconductor, and
others will also be discussed.
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By Craig Matsumoto
October 8, 1998
EE Times
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Intel Corp. has outlined its battle plan
for the high-end workstation and server market, long a
difficult area for the company. Intel will launch
Merced and its successor microprocessors at the high end,
but Intel has been concurrently developing a processor
family, code-named Foster, that will provide a hedge for
mainstream servers and workstations, Intel officials
revealed.
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By John Mackenna
October 6, 1998
PC Week On-line
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The performance-hungry high end of the
PC workstation market has some new choices on its menu,
featuring Intel Corp.'s 450MHz Pentium II Xeon processor. Intel
rolled out the top-of-the-line processor today, and IBM,
Dell Computer Corp., Compaq Computer Corp.,
Hewlett-Packard Co., Gateway Inc. and Intergraph Corp.
were among the OEMs announcing workstations based on the
chip.
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By Michael Kanellos
October 8, 1998
C/Net
|
Advanced Micro Devices is inching toward
a deal with Gateway that, if consummated, would lead to
the first AMD-based Gateway desktop computer, according
to sources. Meanwhile, IBM is considering using an AMD
K6-2 processor in a consumer notebook.
While neither deal has been finalized yet, the
existence of close negotiations between Gateway and AMD
reflect the changing nature of the computer market.
Gateway has long been one of the staunchest allies of
Intel.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By David Lammers
October 8, 1998
EE Times
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Any thoughts that Advanced Micro Devices
Inc. might hoe a different next-generation-memory row
than Intel Corp. were quickly put aside, with its
Thursday announcement that it would use the Rambus
technology. The initial implementation will be to
develop a chip set that will support Direct Rambus DRAMs
with AMD's forthcoming K-7 processor, and AMD said it has
test chips functioning with the Rambus Asic Cell (RAC)
working at full-speed, 800-MHz operation.
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By Peter Clarke
October 7, 1998
EE Times
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The U.K.'s strategy for attracting
investment for semiconductor manufacturing seems to be
unraveling under pressure from continuing weakness in the
global semiconductor market. National Semiconductor
Corp., one of the first investors into "Silicon
Glen" in the mid-1970s, is the latest company to
announce plans to cease chip manufacturing in the U.K. National
said it will close its old 4-inch wafer fabrication
facility here, but plans to set up an independent analog
foundry that will take ownership of National's separate
6-inch fab. Both the 4-inch Fab 1 and the 6-inch Fab 3
run bipolar and CMOS processes and make predominantly
analog ICs.
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By Stephen Shankland
October 8, 1998
C/Net
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A federal government agency has selected
National Semiconductor as the lead company in a
three-year, $18.6 million project to improve microchip
yields while lowering production costs. The program's
goal is to improve chip manufacturing so that lithography
and etching equipment can compensate on the fly for
problems that crop up as the chip wafer is processed. The
technique for catching problems is called feed-forward
control or FFC.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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By John Lettice
October 8, 1998
The Register
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AMD is to launch the 400 MHz version of
its K6-2 processor on 10 November, with the backing of a
"top tier" vendor, according to sources close
to the company. It's not yet entirely clear who the
vendor is, but Compaq, IBM and HP are all candidates. All
three companies have been successful in selling AMD K6
machines in the retail market in the past few months
(Intel sales badly dented by AMD upstarts), and
announcing record sales two days ago AMD said that,
building on its success in the retail market, it was now
poised to challenge Intel in the sub-$1,500 PC arena.
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| October 8, 1998 |
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By Brooke Crothers
October 7, 1998
C/Net
|
Intel detailed a roadmap for upcoming
microprocessors that will extend variations of its
current technology well into the next century and
range up to 1000 MHz in speed.Most prominently,
technology code-named Foster will represent a new
processor "microarchitecture," according to
Fred Pollack, director of measurement, architecture, and
planning and Intel's microprocessor products group.
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See
Today's Related Stories |
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By John Lettice
October 8, 1998
The Register
|
Intel has started to open up more about
its roadmap (detailed here weeks ago) for successors to
the Pentium II, and for the continuation of the IA-32
architecture beyond the launch of IA-64 Merced. With the
new designs, expected from 1999 through to 2001, Intel
appears to some extent to be making increased efforts to
segment the market, and in other ways to downplay the
importance of Merced. The successor to the Pentium II
is codenamed Foster, and is targeted to hit clock speeds
of a gigahertz by late 2000 or early 2001. It will be
aimed at workstations and servers, so actually it's a PII
Xeon replacement, and it's expected to run some 32-bit
apps faster than Merced, so Intel is covering its butt in
the event of Merced not being a screamer initially,
and/or if IA-64 software is stalled in development.
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By Lisa DiCarlo
October 7, 1998
PC Week Online
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc., on a roll
after announcing an unexpected quarterly profit on
Tuesday, today said it will license the Direct Rambus
DRAM memory interface for future chip sets. The
company's decision to use Direct RDRAM will help put its
systems on par with Intel Corp.'s in terms of
performance.
Direct RDRAM, developed by Rambus Inc., is the
successor to synchronous dynamic RAM. It is the same
memory type around which Intel is designing motherboards
and that it plans to support in its 1999 chip sets.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Linley Gwennap
October 5, 1998
Microprocessor Report
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Although AMD has struggled (and for the
most part failed) to earn a profit over the past several
quarters, some good signs have emerged recently. We
estimate the company's share of the PC processor market
rose to 12% in 3Q98, and it is particularly strong in the
U.S. retail market, capturing 35% in June (according to
ZD Market Intelligence). While AMD may be profitable for
the rest of the year, maintaining growth and
profitability in 1999 will be challenging. The
company's growing market share is due in part to its
internal improvements. The K6-2 is a strong product that
matches all of Intel's high-volume speed grades and even
includes 3D acceleration features (see MPR 6/1/98, p. 18)
that Intel's chips lack. Perhaps more important, the
company appears to have overcome the manufacturing
problems that kept it from shipping enough parts in 1997
and early 1998. After some initial problems, the new
0.25-micron process is ramping well and has completely
replaced the older process at the company's flagship Fab
25.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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By Lisa DiCarlo
October 8, 1998
PC Week Online
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Intel Corp. on Wednesday laid out its
four-year road map for 32- and 64-bit microprocessors for
high-end workstations and servers. At a briefing at
its headquarters here, Intel said that true enterprise
customers require long-range planning and as a result it
has decided to "open its books."
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By Mark Hachman
October 8, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
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Intel briefed reporters on its climb to
1-gigahertz microprocessors Wednesday night as part of a
plan to attract new workstation and server customers. Responding
to recent product roadmaps published by other RISC
microprocessor vendors, Intel Corp. disclosed more
details about new 32-bit and 64-bit microprocessors as a
prelude to the its 1-GHz milestone.
Typically, Intel executives have chosen to brief OEMs
privately, disclosing product revisions and new
technologies in front of a selected panel of hardware and
software vendors. Wednesday, however, company executives
provided those same details to reporters in a bid to tap
into a larger customer base.
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By James Niccolai
October 7, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
|
Intel here on Wednesday sketched out its
microprocessor road map, including plans for a new 32-bit
microarchitecture that over time will replace the current
P6 design on which the Pentium II processor is based. The
new microarchitecture will incorporate a number of
technology improvements that will allow the company's
processors to execute software applications faster.
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By Andrew MacLellan
October 8, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
|
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. today said
it will adopt the Direct Rambus DRAM memory interface for
the K7 microprocessor line the company is readying for
next year's PC market. The K7 will support Direct RDRAM
and existing PC-100 SDRAM with separate chipsets.
Though it has stumbled in the processor arena, the
Sunnyvale, Calif., rival to Intel Corp. has begun to make
progress in the growing sub-$1,000 PC market with its
cost-conscious K6 CPU design.
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By Andy Santoni
October 8, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
|
Advanced Micro Devices announced
Thursday that it has licensed Rambus memory technology
and will support Direct Rambus DRAM with core-logic chips
for its forthcoming K7 processors. At the introduction
of its K6, AMD offered AMD-branded core-logic chips,
designed by VIA Technologies, to demonstrate AMD's
commitment to the Socket 7 interface the K6 uses. Enough
merchant core-logic chip suppliers support the Super 7
interface the K6 now uses that AMD no longer feels a need
to market its own chip set, a company representative
explained.
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| October 7, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
October 6, 1998
C/Net
|
Advanced Micro Devices today reported
record revenues of $685.9 million for the third quarter
and net income of $1 million, or 1 cent per share--the
chipmaker's first profit in more than a year--as a result
of a 30 percent surge in sales. For the current
quarter, AMD will try to build on this success by
shipping a 400-MHz version of the K6-2 chip in volume,
increasing the company's presence in the notebook market
and keeping rival Intel at bay with lower-priced
processors, chief executive Jerry Sanders said.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By John Lettice
October 7, 1998
The Register
|
AMD is claiming a 54 per cent share of
the sub-$1,000 PC market for its K6-2 CPU, and is now
taking aim at the sub-$1,500 mainstream desktop market
with the 350 MHz version of the chip. This sector of the
company's business now at last seems to be booming - on
the strength of it AMD yesterday announced that it had
gone back into profit in its third quarter. Its sales
of $686 million were up 30 per cent on the previous
quarter (15 per cent on last year), and although profit
was only $1 million, analysts had been expecting another
loss. The company says sales and bookings are running at
record levels, and that the PC manufacturers' inventory
problems of earlier this year have finally been cleared
from the channel, meaning there's plenty of headroom for
more sales increases.
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By Mark Hachman
October 7, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
|
Centaur Technology, a subsidiary of
Integrated Device Technology (IDT), will announce next
week that it has canceled plans to develop a
microprocessor that only integrates core logic. Instead,
Centaur is "redirecting" development to add
graphics technology derived from an outside source. IDT
officials separately confirmed the company has shelved
development of its own stand-alone graphics chip, which
industry sources said was called VisionArray. Instead,
Centaur executives said they will probably license or
work with one of the 30-odd existing PC graphics-chip
companies.
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By John Lettice
October 7, 1998
The Register
|
The first systems based on Intel's
450MHz Xeon CPU will ship this month, following today's
announcement of the processor, but four-way
implementations won't be out till next year - very early
next year, said a spokesman, while eight-way Xeon is
still a way off. The 450 MHz Xeon is designed for use
in dual processor workstations and servers, and for 1,000
unit quantities will cost $824, a substantial price cut
from the equivalent 400 MHz part's launch price of
$1,124. Intel however now says that four-way 450MHz Xeon
servers are likely to ship early next year.
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By Drew Cullen
October 7, 1998
The Register
|
National Semiconductor has hit back the
Wall Street Journal, following a "one-sided"
article in Monday's edition, in which the company was
accused of exposing workers at its Greenock, Scotland
plant to hazardous working conditions, In the WSJ
article, former NatSemi workers complained of chemical
leaks at the plant, and exposure to carcinogenic
materials, which had led to a cluster of miscarriages and
uterine cances.
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See Related
Stories Workers
make cancer claims in NatSemi job cuts factory
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| Today's Related Stories |
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By Tom Quinlan
October 7, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
|
Paint it black for Advanced Micro
Devices Inc.: The Sunnyvale chip company surprised Wall
Street Tuesday by posting its first quarterly profit in
more than a year. Although AMD's third-quarter earnings
were scant -- $1 million, or one cent per share, on
record sales of $685.9 million -- its performance far
exceeded the analysts' consensus of a 14-cent-per-share
loss.
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By Larry Barrett
October 7, 1998
ZD Net News
|
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD)
on Tuesday became the second major chipmaker in as many
days to shatter analysts’ estimates in its third
quarter. AMD posted a profit of $1 million, or 1 cent a
share, on sales of $685 million. First Call consensus
expected AMD to lose 11 cents a share in the quarter.
On Tuesday, Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) easily hurdled
analysts’ estimates in its third quarter.
AMD shares closed up 1 ½ to 19 7/8 ahead of the
earnings report.
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By Gabrielle Jonas
October 6, 1998
TechInvestor
|
Crediting substantial growth in sales of
its K6-2 processors, Advanced Micro Devices returned to
profitability in its third quarter and trounced Wall
Street estimates, the company said Tuesday. For the
three months ended Sept. 27, AMD (company profile)
reported net income of $1 million, or one penny a share,
on revenue of $686 million.
Analysts were expecting the company to post a loss of
11 cents per share, according to First Call, revised up
from a 21 cents per share loss estimated earlier in the
quarter.
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By Will Wade
October 6, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
|
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. blew out
analysts' expectations with record sales in its third
quarter, and reported net income here today of $1
million. Although its communications and memory
devices showed flat sales, the company saw significant
growth in microprocessor sales, which led to total sales
of $685.9 million for the period.
AMD's microprocessor business was the company's
strongest unit, and all of the quarterly gains came from
the K6 product line, which saw sales increase by 70%. An
important shift this quarter was a higher percentage of
MPU shipments at the higher end of the product family,
said W. J. (Jerry) Sanders III, chairman and CEO.
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By Richard Richtmyer
October 7, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
|
Citing growing demand for its low-end
microprocessors, Advanced Micro Systems Inc. on Tuesday
reported third-quarter earnings that came in ahead of
analysts' expectations, finishing on the plus side after
four quarters of losses. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based
chip maker reported total sales of $685.9 million for the
third quarter, an increase of 30% from the second quarter
of 1998, and 15% from the year-ago period.Those sales
resulted in net income of $1 million, or one cent per
share, the company said.
Most analysts were expecting the company to post a
slight loss or break even, at best.
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By Torsten Busse
October 6, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
|
Aided by strong sales of its AMD-K6-2
processors, Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday surprised
Wall Street by reporting a return to profitability,
posting a third-quarter net income of slightly more than
$1 million, or 1 cent per share. In the third quarter
of 1997 AMD had reported a net loss of $31.6 million on
sales of $597 million, or a net loss per share of 22
cents.
Analysts polled by First Call expected the chip maker
to report a loss of 11 cents per share for the third
quarter ended Sept. 27.
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| October 6, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
October 5, 1998
C/Net
|
Sony has adopted the K6-2 processor from
Advanced Micro Devices for a new line of consumer PCs for
the Japanese market, a design win on the eve of the
company's quarterly report that could presage AMD-based
Sony machines in the U.S. The Sony deal will likely be
one of the topics in what is expected to be a relatively
upbeat conference call tomorrow. AMD is still expected to
post a loss, but a much smaller one than AMD reported in
previous quarters and even predictions from a few weeks
ago. The consensus estimate is now a loss of 12 cents a
share, up from predictions of a loss of 14 cents a week
ago. Some even believe the loss could be narrower.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Gabrielle Jonas
October 5, 1998
TechInvestor
|
As Advanced Micro Devices prepares to
announce its third quarter earnings on Tuesday, analysts
disagreed about whether the chip company's ambitious
shipping goals will do more harm than good. In a
research report published Monday, Piper Jaffray analyst
Ashok Kumar said recent "channel-checking"
shows AMD is trying to increase its microprocessor unit
shipments by 1 million every quarter. Those shipments
mostly involve 350-MHz K6-2 processors with 3DNow
technology.
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By Mark Hachman
October 5, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
|
Saying the company has "the
equivalent of one factory too many to meet the business
level of the next four to five years," Brian Halla,
president and CEO of National Semiconductor announced
Monday it will lay off as many as 600 employees in its
Greenock, Scotland fab and consolidate all manufacturing
in Scotland over the next 12 months into Fab 3, a 6-inch
fab also based in Greenock. Beginning in March 1999,
National's work force at Fab 1, a 4-inch wafer facility
in Greenock dedicated to manufacturing analog integrated
circuits, is expected to decrease from 1,000 to 400
employees, the company said. Fab 1 will then be sold.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Drew Cullen
October 5, 1998
The Register
|
National Semiconductor is axe 700 jobs
at its Greenock manufacturing plant, reducing the 1,500
workforce by almost half. Sources close to the company
blamed the job cuts on this years semiconductor price
drops: “Some of Natsemi products are going out at
less than a penny,” said Sukh Rayat, general manager
at Flashpoint UK , a distributor of NatSemi Cyrix
processors. “Prices have fallen further and have
lasted longer than anyone could have expected.”
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By Barbara Jorgensen
October 5, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
|
Seeking an entree into the x86 CPU
market, Reptron Electronics Inc. has added the Rise
Technology Co. products to its line card. Reptron's
national distribution agreement with the Santa Clara,
Calif.-based company is effective immediately.
Rise Technology focuses on selected areas of the
Windows market, and provides x86 CPU solutions that are
targeted at being very competitive in those segments.
Rise designs, markets, sells and distributes
high-performance CPU and CPU-centric products that
maintain adherence to accepted industry standards.
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October 5, 1998
The Register
|
The Federal Trade Commission's
anti-trust suit against Intel has been postponed again,
this time by a further month. The action will now
commence on 18 February 1999. The move was made by the
presiding judge, James Timoney, the better to fit his
undoubtedly busy schedule. The judge had already set the
trial for 5 January.
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October 5, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
|
Preview text not available. Please click
on link to view text. |
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| Today's Related Stories |
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October 6, 1998
The Register
|
Sony is to use AMD's K6-2 processor in
its forthcoming line of consumer PCs. The news comes one
day before AMD is due to release its latest quarterly
results. The Japanese consumer electronics giant will
be using the 350MHz K6-2 in its Vaio Compo line due to go
on sale at the end of the month.
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By Jim Davis
October 5, 1998
C/Net
|
In an effort to curb excess production
costs, National Semiconductor said it would consolidate
its wafer manufacturing operations in Greenock, Scotland,
eventually resulting in cuts in the workforce there. One
manufacturing line will be closed and consolidated into
the remaining line, with the company expecting thatwill
decline from 1,000 to employment at the facility 400
starting in March of 1999. Some employees will be
transferred to other manufacturing facilities, but
thecompany did not state how many might be affected.
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By Will Wade
October 5, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
|
National Semiconductor Corp. here today
announced it would shut down a 4-inch wafer processing
line in Greenock, Scotland, while it looks for investors
to purchase the analog chip manufacturing complex and
operate it as a foundry. In the meantime, the Greenock
facility will consolidate its silicon processing on a
6-inch wafer line and lay off 600 workers. National plans
to take a $25 million charge in the current quarter for
the layoffs and fab line shutdown.
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| October 5, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
October 2, 1998
C/Net
|
Though Intel supplies close to half of
the processors for computers in the retail market, its
grip seems to be slipping. Computers containing Intel
processors accounted for 54.3 percent of retail sales in
August, according to Matt Sargent, computing analyst with
Computer Intelligence. This is a drastic drop from the
same month a year ago when Intel-based PCs accounted for
84.3 percent of retail sales.
Much of the lost market share was picked up by
Advanced Micro Devices and the processor companies that
supply chips for Apple's iMac.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Andrew MacLellan
October 5, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
|
Having assembled third-party chip-set
support for its virtual-channel memory (VCM)
architecture, NEC Electronics is poised to thrust the new
133-MHz synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) core into the notebook
and low-cost desktop-PC markets. However, without the
endorsement of chip-set industry leader Intel, which has
thus far withheld its blessing, many observers said they
predict NEC's VCM core will have a tough go of it in the
broader market.
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By Michael Kanellos
October 2, 1998
C/Net
|
The Federal Trade Commission's antitrust
action against Intel has been postponed until the middle
of February to accommodate the schedule of the presiding
judge. The administrative action will now begin on
February 18, according to Chuck Mulloy, an Intel
spokesman. Earlier, Judge James Timoney set the trial for
a January 5 starting date.
In the action, the FTC is alleging that Intel uses
unfair, monopolistic business practices to the detriment
of computer vendors, processor manufacturers, and
graphics chipmakers. The case primarily revolves around
three incidents where Intel terminated or threatened to
terminate nondisclosure agreements with computer vendors
that would not license intellectual property to Intel.
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By Terry Costlow
October 1, 1998
EE Times
|
The Slot 2 connectors that Molex Inc.
will roll out next week for Intel Corp.'s Pentium II Xeon
processor will employ novel techniques to satisfy
requirements set by Intel and Molex when they began
working together in 1994. The connectors borrow circuit
board techniques to handle higher speeds while increasing
contact density. The HiSpec card edge connectors are
designed for servers and other high-end applications that
require Xeon, which was introduced in June. The connector
itself is only slightly larger than the Slot 1 connector
found on many desktop systems, but it has 110 extra
contacts and can handle signals that are more than twice
as fast. Some of the techniques implemented on the Slot 2
connector are already being employed in other Molex
connectors.
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By Michael Kanellos
October 5, 1998
C/Net
|
Major computer vendors will roll out a
series of new workstations using Intel’s
top-of-the-line Xeon chip next Tuesday. The only thing
in short supply may be the chip itself, an issue which
has dogged the high-end processor since its late June
debut. Computer executives have said that getting
adequate supplies of Intel's 450-MHz Xeon remains
difficult, although Intel has told workstation
manufacturers that greater numbers of Xeon processors
will be available toward the end of the month.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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By John Lettice
October 5, 1998
The Register
|
Intel efforts to beat-off low cost
rivals seem to be failing, according to research outfit
Computer Intelligence, which says the company's share of
US retail sales in August was 54.3 per cent, down from
84.3 per cent a year ago. High-powered clone chips
from AMD scored well over the month, and Intel's attempts
to 'ring fence' the low-end via Celeron have flopped
conspicuously - Celeron machines did badly, PII ones
rather better.
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