Micron to support AMD chip
Fri May 05 23:53:00 EDT 2000
May. 05, 2000 (Electronic Buyers News - CMP via COMTEX) -- In a marked strategy
shift, Micron Technology Inc. said it now plans to sell its Samurai core-logic
chipset under its own label to support the Athlon microprocessor from Advanced
Micro Devices Inc.
The double-data-rate SDRAM-enabled chipset will be made by an unidentified
foundry that, in an ironic twist, has a technology cross-licensing agreement
with Intel Corp. Industry sources said that in addition to supporting AMD's
Athlon chips, Micron will authorize the foundry to brand, market, and sell the
Samurai under its own label to connect with Intel's desktop Pentium processors.
Executives at Micron, Boise, Idaho, last week declined to comment on that aspect
of the company's new thrust.
Micron now sees a large potential market for DDR-enabled chipsets, said Dean
Klein, vice president of the company's integrated products group. The move is a
major departure for the company. On several occasions, Micron said it had no
plans to enter the chipset business, maintaining that it would merely promote
the Samurai chipset architecture to prime the market for DDR SDRAM.
That strategy did an about-face last week, when Klein said Micron is upbeat
about the Samurai's ability to generate appreciable merchant-market sales by
supporting the Athlon desktop processor. "We see a high volume for an Athlon DDR
chipset," he said. "Our chipset road map includes Athlon in a big way."
Specifically, Micron's Samurai would support sockets in the Athlon market
alongside AMD's upcoming 760 DDR chipset, which is targeted at desktops and
servers using two-way processors, Klein said.
Other DDR-enabled Athlon chipsets are expected to roll out from Acer
Laboratories, SiS, and Via Technologies.
Micron's Samurai strategy flies in the face of Intel's processor/chipset product
plans, and would seem particularly galling given that Intel in 1998 invested
$500 million in Micron to ensure an ample supply of high-speed DRAM to support
the Pentium III family.
Intel has eschewed DDR-enabled chipsets for its desktop processors, and is
instead promoting rival Direct Rambus DRAM and associated chipsets. By contrast,
AMD has jumped on the DDR SDRAM bandwagon, and Micron's Samurai chipset could
help the company compete against Intel in high-performance PCs and workstations.
Asked why Micron was allying itself with AMD, Klein replied, "The only reason is
that AMD was extremely interested and wanted us to provide the Samurai chipset
for Athlon. Intel didn't want to discuss our help with Samurai."
Micron's merchant-market focus is especially timely for AMD, which last week was
informed that Athlon chipset developer HotRail Inc. was leaving the PC space for
the communications sector. That decision prompted HotRail to drop its
development of an eight-way Athlon chipset.
Klein declined to comment on HotRail's market exit, but sources said
high-performance Athlon servers could connect any number of processors to an
equal number of Samurai chipsets. The Athlon architecture is able to use
individual 266-MHz processor bus lines, each of which talks to its own chipset,
as opposed to Intel's architecture, which uses a shared processor-bus line.
Klein refrained from setting a timetable for mass marketing of the Samurai.
"We're currently working fast and furiously on an Athlon DDR chipset solution,"
he said. "We'll be a player in the Athlon market."
While Micron is eyeing opportunities in the Athlon arena, the company's foundry
partner hopes to tie the Samurai to Intel's Pentium III, according to sources.
That could pose a threat to the chip giant, which has steadfastly refused to
develop a DDR-enabled chipset for its high-end processor.
According to observers, a maverick Pentium III chipset supplier could undermine
Intel's efforts to jump-start support for Direct RDRAM, and would open a second
market front against the company, which already is bracing for rival lower-end
chipsets that support DDR SDRAM from Taiwanese IC makers Acer, SiS, and Via.
Micron last November even discussed licensing Samurai to Via, which showed the
chipset at Fall Comdex. However, Via has since decided the Samurai was aimed at
a market far above the Taiwan company's core business in economy and value-line
PCs. Instead, Via resurrected a prior DDR design of its own that it had shelved,
and next month is expected to sample the chipset for low- to midrange Intel
processors.
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