Hassell,
Where did you see the article where COMS projects reduction in margins (WRT your post on the COMS thread)? Looked for it but didn't find it.
I was at WinHEC last week, and while I tried to keep up with all the threads, I didn't have time to post.
Several interesting trends at WinHEC:
This is all speculative and MHO.
1) Microsoft is pushing hard for "controller-less" modems. They presented a couple of papers on their "Class Driver" for modems. What this means is that they want control of the engine that controls the DSP chip so that a standard programming interface can be used for all modems. They would like to write the software for the DSP as well, but I don't see this happening because the CPU would have to do the work of the DSP and that would make the host CPU less determinist, which users would not like. They may get their way on the controllerless part though.
2) Microsoft is getting into digital broadcast technology in a big way. They're working on technology to allow mixed digital TV video and network data to be broadcast from standard broadcast TV stations. The data portion would be extracted by a standard NDIS network driver.
3) WRT to (2) above DVD is central into their (MSFT) multimedia strategy. DVD will become part of standard graphics controllers this year. It will be a long time before the host CPU is able to handle the MPEG2 decoding function. This is a similar problem to the DSP function in modems.
4) WRT your posts on the USRX/COMS thread; Cyrix and AMD will cut into INTCs Pentium market; however, both are way behind INTC. INTC is well into their P6 cycle and well on their way to testing P7 parts. Neither Cyrix nor AMD are close to P6. In addition, INTC is making it even more difficult for Cyrix and AMD by taking control of the motherboard with their own system chipsets (internally referred to as the NorthBridge). Cyrix and AMD are still trying to work with socket 7 motherboard technology. Finally, AGP (Advanced Graphics Point) is taking off. 3D graphics has an insatiable demand for bus bandwidth. INTC has delivered a very high tech solution to help address this problem that involved heavy participation by the NorthBridge memory controller. All the major graphics adapter companies are introducing support this year. Looks ugly for anyone other than INTC; supposed to be several new startups however (go figure).
5) Intel says they will be offering gigabit ethernet with their systems by year end (optional card solutions).
I don't see an immediate impact on either USRX or COMS due to any of this, but the long term is seriously confused by modem/network technology being sucked into digital TV decoders.
Streaming video, graphics, and Modem/NIC compute loads will not migrate to the INTC CPU for many years to come (even with MMXx and AGP), so no worry there.
I think that DVD, 2D graphics, and 3D graphics are all going to be integrated onto a single card with a digital TV streaming decoder for the consumer market. Well there you have it, the modem, the NIC, the video device, the 2D and 3D graphics all together in order to support digital broadcast standards. By 2000.
Oh yeah, overheard some LU semiconductor guys on the phone with some ASND guys. Must be trying to get in on some of that Rockwell action. |
