| December 23, 1998 |
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By Tom Quinlan
December 23, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Intel Corp.'s introduction on Jan. 4 of
its most powerful Celeron microprocessors will be coupled
with a series of aggressive price cuts designed to
undercut rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s current
pricing for its K6 line, sources familiar with Intel's
plans said. Intel declined to comment on specific
product or pricing plans, but spokesman Robert Manetta
said the Santa Clara-based chip maker would be
introducing the faster Celeron processors early in
January. Manetta also indicated Intel would be targeting
the low end of the chip market in a more aggressive
fashion in 1999.
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By Mike Magee
December 23, 1998
The Register
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Intel will use the Superbowl game in
mid-January to introduce its Katmai chip to a waiting
universe and will call it Pentium III, it has emerged. One
year ago, The Register said that Katmai would be called
the Pentium III.
US magazine Advertising Age leaked the details earlier
this week.
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By Mike Magee
December 23, 1998
The Register
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First details of the performance of the
AMD K6-3 (Sharptooth) have emerged with a review
appearing on the World Wide Web. A review on Sharky
Extreme claimed that the 400MHz part, which ships in
February of 1998, only needed a BIOS update to run
successfully on K6-2 motherboards.
The review added that the product “now
shines” as a chip for the gaming market.
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By Mike Magee
December 22, 1998
The Register
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NatSemi subsidiary Cyrix has clarified
its roadmap for next year, in the buildup to multimedia
extensions it has. A source told The Register today
that it will release MIIs in 333, 350 and 366MHz flavours
throughout Q1 of 1999. It will also release a 400MHz
flavour in Q2.
MXi samples will come in Q1 and be produced in Q2,
according to National Semiconductor.
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| December 22, 1998 |
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By Will Wade
December 21, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
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Microprocessor newcomer Rise Technology
Co. here today announced its first partnership agreement,
saying its mP6 processors will be supported by chip sets
from Acer Laboratories Inc. in Taiwan. The company has
previously announced that it has deals to place its mP6
processor chips in PCs, but will not reveal those firms
until sometime early next year. Acer's Aladdin V
Mobile chip set is designed for notebook PCs, and
emphasizes low power consumption. Rise's processors have
also been designed to target the portable PC market.
"Both the mP6 and the Aladdin V Mobile are designed
to keep power consumption to an absolute minimum while
providing enough computing power to run multimedia and
other high-performance applications," noted David
Lin, chairman and CEO of Rise.
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By Marcia Savage
December 21, 1998
Computer Reseller News
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Intel will make a big push into the
server market when it launches its new 450-MHz Pentium II
Xeon processor for four-way servers, which sources said
is scheduled for Jan. 5. The new high-end Xeon chip
follows the October release of Intel's 450-MHz Xeon for
dual-processor workstations. Intel, based in Santa Clara,
Calif., will offer the new chip with either 1 megabyte or
2 MBs of cache, sources said. Previous processors in the
Xeon line contained either 512 kilobytes or 1 MB of
cache.
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| December 21, 1998 |
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By Mike Magee
December 21, 1998
The Register
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Chip clone company Rise is expected to
announce this week that it has signed a deal with a third
party to provide fab facilities which will allow it make
Socket 370 parts next year. Rise, which has its HQ in
Santa Clara, is one of around 150 or so
"fabless" companies and the deal will represent
something of a breakthrough for the firm, which currently
employs 100 people.
Although no one from the company will yet say who the
partner is, Rise believes that the growth of the Basic PC
notebook and desktop markets will allow it to compete
with larger players.
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By Mike Magee
December 21, 1998
The Register
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which
manufactures clone x.86 processors, said today it will
take on chip mammoth Intel in the notebook market next
year. Rana Mainee, European market research analyst,
responding to the introduction of a whole clutch of
Celeron PII/mobiles next year -- as previously revealed
here -- said Intel's pricetechniques did not frighten
him. cutting
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By Anthony Cataldo and Rick Boyd-Merritt
December 17, 1998
EE Times
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Digital Equipment Corp.'s Alpha
microprocessor division is preparing to come out with its
answer to Intel's Merced at a time when Alpha's fate is
clouded in the wake of Compaq Computer Corp.'s announced
plan to acquire Digital. The company is expected to
detail significant new Alpha products on Monday, possibly
including plans to take the processor to speeds of 1 GHz.
However, Compaq publicly sketched a road map last week
which shows no role for RISC processors in its future
high-end systems. The Houston PC maker separately
disclosed that it is already working with a new design
group at Intel Corp. to build Merced-based servers. |
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By Michael Kanellos
December 18, 1998
C/Net
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January will be a big month for Intel as
the chip giant plans to roll out a new high-end version
of its Xeon processor, a Pentium II processor with
integrated memory for mobile computers, and a series of
Celeron chips for notebooks and desktops. The new
chips, which will also prompt price cuts on existing
Intel processors, will help Intel shore up gaps in its
product lineup as well as open up new markets.
The 450-MHz version of Xeon with 2MB of secondary
cache memory, for instance, will come out during the week
of January 4, according to sources. This chip, which will
be incorporated into servers running four processors, was
originally due in the fall of 1998, but was delayed for
further testing. This in turn delayed many server
rollouts.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Mark Harrington
December 18, 1998
Computer Retail Week
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Intel has accelerated the introduction
of the 400-MHz Celeron by several months and plans to
release the chip in January, sources said. The 400-MHz
Celeron will join the previously planned launch of the
366-MHz Celeron, sources said. Both CPUs are expected to
be formally introduced on Jan. 4. Intel declined to
comment.
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By Mike Magee
December 21, 1998
The Register
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Intel said today that reports it was
producing 366MHz and 400MHz Celerons with Front Side Bus
speeds of 100MHz were spurious. As reported here last
week, that doesn't mean that Intel will not produce
100MHz FSB Celerons.
It's just that Intel has not made its mind up yet.
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By Kurt Oeler
December 19, 1998
C/Net
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Intel again struck an agreement to
license technology critical to making components that are
compatible with its market-leading Pentium II processor
architecture. The deal between the chipmaking giant and
graphics chipmaker S3 is in fact a 10-year
cross-licensing agreement--a technology swap--that also
gives Intel the right to buy shares of S3. But following
a similar pact with Via Technologies two weeks ago, the
upshot is that Intel-based parts will now be made by more
and more different companies.
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By Michael Kanellos
December 18, 1998
C/Net
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With S3 teaming up with Intel, life just
got tougher for other graphics chip companies. The
long-predicted consolidation in the crowded graphics
field took another big step forward yesterday when S3
said it will make "integrated " chipsets in
1999 that combine 3D capabilities with some of the
input-output functions required by Intel's Pentium II
processors.
There are more than 40 graphics chip companies now,
"and I certainly would hope that graphics companies
recognize that there are way too many of them," said
Peter Glaskowsky, graphics analyst at MicroDesign
Resources.
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See More Intel / S3 News |
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December 21, 1998
The Register
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Sources close to Acer have indicated
that more troubles are ahead for the Taiwanese company,
following a profit warning the company made two weeks
ago. The 44 per cent profit target for 1998 conceals
further problems at Acer, the source said.
Earlier this year, Stan Shih, CEO of the company, said
that he was taking over the running of Acer Semicon
(which includes the former TI investment), while two
presidents of Acer America lost their jobs because that
division failed to make money.
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By Jack Robertson
December 17, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
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Micron Technology Inc. has introduced
samples of several 133-MHz 64-Mbit SDRAM that could boost
the performance of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. processors
that compete with Intel Corp., a half-billion dollar
investor in Micron, sources said. Micron's 133-MHz
SDRAM family works with the high-speed bus used by the
new AMD processors, which is faster than the 100-MHz bus
used by Intel processors which rely on the present
workhorse PC100 64-Mbit memory chips. Even Micron's name
for the new devices, PC133 SDRAMs, sets them apart from
PC100 devices used in PCs based on Intel processors.
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By Jennifer Baljko
December 18, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
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DRAM suppliers aggressively developing
and marketing Direct Rambus devices will have a stake in
the success of the architecture-literally. Rambus Inc.
has put together a warrants-based incentive program that
could give a boost to financially troubled licensing
partners.
Rambus' board in October authorized the incentive
program for 400,000 shares of common stock, according to
the company's annual report, which the Mountain View,
Calif., company filed Dec. 9 with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
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| Intel Legal News |
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December 18, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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An administrative judge has delayed for
six weeks a hearing on antitrust allegations that
government has brought against computer chip-maker Intel
Corp. James P. Timony, an administrative law judge for
the Federal Trade Commission, rescheduled the hearing for
Feb. 23 after both agency officials and Intel said they
need more time to review evidence and prepare their
cases.
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December 18, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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With a $1 billion computer business at
stake, Intergraph Corp. chairman Jim Meadlock needed some
assurances from Andy Grove, chief executive of Intel
Corp. Meeting at a trade show, Meadlock told Grove he
was worried about Intel being the sole supplier of
computer chips for Intergraph's high-powered
workstations. A disruption could kill Meadlock's company.
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By Joel Brinkley
December 18, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Lawyers for Intel Corp. should be well
acquainted with antitrust inquiries by the Federal Trade
Commission -- a process different from the one followed
in Justice Department antitrust cases -- because the
commission has been investigating the microprocessor
giant off and on throughout this decade. In 1991, the
agency began an antitrust investigation of Intel based on
complaints that the company was illegally trying to
squeeze smaller chip makers out of business.
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December 18, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Trying to counter claims it wielded
undue influence, Microsoft sought to portray an Intel
executive today as a disgruntled employee reprimanded for
shoddy work. Microsoft tried to assail Steven McGeady's
credibility through notes the Intel vice president
scribbled to himself during a mid-1995 meeting with his
supervisor, Frank Gill.
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By Steve Lohr and John Markoff
December 18, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. are so
intertwined, so seemingly dependent on each other for
their success, that they are often referred to as a
single entity -- ``Wintel'' -- in recognition of the
degree to which Microsoft's Windows operating system and
Intel's microprocessors dominate the technology of
personal computing. But the government is investigating
whether Microsoft has used its market muscle to force
even Intel, its only real peer, to shelve new technology
efforts that conflicted with Microsoft's ambitions.
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December 18, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Silicon Storage Technology Inc. said a
patent infringement lawsuit filed against it by
semiconductor maker Intel Corp. was dismissed by a U.S.
District Court in Delaware, on the basis of jurisdiction. Silicon
Storage Technology said U.S. District Court Judge
McKelvie said in a 21-page ruling that Intel failed to
establish a basis for the Delaware court to take up the
dispute, which involved two companies in Silicon Valley.
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| More
Intel / S3 News |
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By Craig Matsumoto
December 18, 1998
EE Times
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Intel Corp. and S3 Inc. have announced a
10-year patent cross-licensing agreement, a move that
clears the path for S3 to integrate core logic into its
graphics-controller products. "Virtually every
desktop graphics manufacturer has a program in place to
do an integrated chip set-graphics solution," said
Dean McCarron, a principal of the research firm Mercury
Research (Scottsdale, Ariz.). "If you're interested
in the bottom of the mid-range [PC market] and below, it
makes sense."
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| Today's
Related Stories |
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By John G. Spooner
December 18, 1998
PC Week Online
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Intel Corp. (INTC) is preparing to
release a flurry of new CPUs next month in a move that
could further muddy the waters for low-cost notebook and
desktop processors. The introductions will expand the
Santa Clara, Calif., company's mobile and desktop
processor lines to four families--Pentium Processor with
MMX Technology, Celeron, Pentium II and Pentium II
Enhanced--many of which have overlapping functions and
processor speeds. For example, Intel will offer four
mobile processors with clock speeds of 266MHz and 300MHz.
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