Mark, "Intel is expected to announce next week a new networking chip aimed at the booming communications market"
As this thread's resident INTC expert, do you suppose the timing of this news item has anything to do with the push to merge the I20 NGIO standards as quickly as possible?
<http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,40971,00.html?st.ne.fd.gif.f>
And, what do you suppose the chances are of WIND's I20 being a part of all this ?
> Intel's new chip--called the Internet Exchange Processor, or IXP
> 1200--would serve as the nerve center for routers, switches, and other
> communications hardware built by companies such as Cisco Systems and Nortel
> Networks, industry sources said.
> The company also will announce a new chip architecture that defines how
> Intel will design future networking processors and describes how to write
> software for the chips, the sources said.
> <snip>
> Sources said Intel's new IXP architecture is built from StrongARM
> technology it obtained from Digital Equipment in 1997, as well as
> technology from its recent $2.2 billion acquisition of Level One and $150
> million purchase of Softcom Microsystems.
> "Digital, Softcom, and Level One are all deeply involved in this and are
> key parts of the strategy," one source said.
> The IXP chip features a StrongARM chip with six "microengines," or smaller
> processors. Sources said the networking chip is an open, standardized
> hardware design, allowing networking firms to customize it with their own
> programming.
> "They want to emulate the success they had with the PC industry and bring
> it to the networking world," one source said.
> The StrongARM chip has found a home in cell phones and handheld devices.
> Putting it inside the IXP chip will give Intel a bigger opportunity to sell
> the StrongARM technology. Softcom's technology processes packets of data
> and makes the chip programmable, while Level One's technology is the
> silicon that sends information over a medium, such as telephone wire. |
