Intel increasing speed of P-III to vie with AMD's Athlons -- Chip maker's Pentium 4 said to lack power of rival's MPU
Jul. 21, 2000 (Electronic Buyers News - CMP via COMTEX) -- Intel Corp.'s
yet-unannounced mainstream Pentium 4 microprocessor is lagging newer versions of
Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Athlon, according to industry observers, leading
the company to breathe new life into its aging Pentium III line.
The mid-end Intel chip will be preceded by a high-performance Pentium 4,
previously known as the Willamette, which will appear in high-end desktops in
the fourth quarter and then scale to the mainstream PC later next year, sources
said at last week's Platform 2000 conference in San Jose.
However, because AMD's new, high-speed desktop Athlons will be approaching 1.5
GHz next year, Intel has decided to shrink the Pentium III die to boost its
frequency to 1.4 GHz.
The new Pentium III speed grade will be among the first to use Intel's new
0.13-micron wafer processing with copper interconnect, sources said. The line
will also allow Intel to perfect high-volume production of the new process
technology using a mature and proven Pentium III core before transitioning to
the next-generation Pentium 4.
At the same time, Intel is said to be readying a 200-MHz frontside bus to
support the faster Pentium IIIs. The Athlon has had a 200-MHz frontside bus from
its inception, a speed that was increased this year to 266 MHz to match the
clock of the DDR SDRAM.
Intel's new Pentium III line is different from the 1.13-GHz chip the company is
announcing next week. That will be the last stretch of the 0.18-micron
Coppermine process before the 0.13-micron Pentium IIIs come to market, observers
said.
Sources familiar with Intel's processor road map spoke on condition of
anonymity. However, Bert McComas, an analyst at InQuest Inc., Gilbert, Ariz.,
and sponsor of the Platform 2000 conference, said in a keynote session last week
that Intel will unveil the 0.13-micron Pentium III chip to extend its speed
range in the mainstream market. He said Intel desperately needs a new
high-frequency mainstream MPU to compete against AMD's Athlon Thunderbird and
upcoming Ultra.
"Intel couldn't afford to wait on developing a mainstream desktop Willamette
chip," McComas said. "They've returned to the old tried-and-true Pentium III
core as a quick fix."
An Intel spokesman declined to comment on the issue, but said the company plans
to produce Pentium III and Pentium 4 processors on its new 0.13-micron process.
He denied that a 0.13-micron Pentium III was a response to AMD's Athlon, but
instead was part of Intel's normal road-map progression.
The long-awaited Pentium 4 launch will proceed as planned later this year,
according to sources, beginning with limited volumes of a high-performance,
dual-memory-channel device for workstations and high-end PCs. A lower-priced
single-channel version is set to follow for the mainstream desktop segment.
However, development of the follow-on version was proceeding slowly, sources
said, and even if on schedule would have arrived more than six months after
AMD's pace-setting Athlons.
The 1.4-GHz Pentium III processor can use double-data-rate SDRAM to compete
against Athlon desktops and notebooks using the same high-speed memory. But
because Intel's agreement with Rambus Inc. to promote Direct Rambus DRAM
contractually bars it from making its own DDR-enabled chipsets, Intel will
depend on third-party vendors Acer Laboratories, Micron Technology, Silicon
Integrated Systems, and Via Technologies to supply the core-logic devices.
The high-performance Pentium 4 will support Direct RDRAM and will be the first
to use Intel's new quad-pumped IA-32-bit bus line. Intel so far has refused to
license either its IA-32 or IA-64 bus technology to third-party chipset makers,
although Via has indicated it plans to develop a DDR-enabled Pentium 4 chipset
for the mainstream market with or without an Intel license.
Because the high-performance Pentium 4 is targeted at the smaller work-station
segment, rival chipset vendors are likely to leave that market to Intel and
Rambus and concentrate on preparing DDR logic controllers for the follow-on
processor.
With its trickle-down approach, Intel's Pentium 4 microprocessor strategy
represents a return to the vintage business model that had worked well for the
company in the past, McComas said.
"By coming out with a new 0.13-micron Pentium III processor, they buy more time
to develop and fully test [a mainstream] Willamette," he said. "The initial
high-performance version introduced in Q4 will have high margins to underwrite
development, validation, and testing costs. It'll also allow Intel to start
building up an infrastructure to support its new IA-32 and IA-64 frontside bus.
"At the same time, Intel will count on high-volume sales of the new Pentium III
core MPU to try to maintain market share while transitioning gradually into the
new architectures," McComas said. |
