Interesting comment from the article -- it supports a PC architecture having a separate chip for DVD rather than Soft-DVD.........
National's attempt to piece together all the components of a PC on as
few chips as possible is the product of Halla's vision of the future of
computing, which he calls "distributed processing." Rather than rely on
a large processing engine to perform multiple tasks, Halla advocates
using smaller, functionally specific processing engines and tying them
together.
For Halla's vision to succeed, National will have to prove that it can
supply all the system building blocks on its own. Traditionally, PC
vendors have been able to decide which devices are used on a board,
though Intel's dominance in processors and chip sets has skewed that
model somewhat, said Mark Kirstein, a senior analyst with In-Stat Inc.
(Scottsdale, Ariz.)
"Distributed processing makes a ton of sense from a technical
standpoint, because you don't generally want to funnel data through one
central resource and funnel it back out," he said. "But it doesn't make
sense unless you control all the pieces." |
