Intel said to boost 845B0 products with discounts and prioritized supply
Emma Wang, Taipei; Christy Lee, DigiTimes.com [Tuesday 11 December 2001]
With further chipset discounts and processor supply guidelines, Intel has prepared well to ensure that motherboards based on its latest DDR SDRAM-compliant 845B0 (845D) will hit the market grandly on December 16, motherboard makers said.
Sources said that Intel had planned to cut the prices of its SDRAM-based 845A3 and DDR-supporting 845B0 by US$2 on December 30, but the company has informed board makers that the pricing policy would start on December 1.
Intel has been staying competitive by quoting its 845A3 and 845B0 at the same prices, but the strategy has inevitably made it difficult for motherboard makers to position their products and maintain reasonable gross margins. Lately, the chip giant is rumored to have rearranged a price differential of 5% between the two chipsets while delivering to motherboard companies. However, board manufacturers have still started large-scale clear-outs of the 845A3 to avoid possible inventory problems.
Besides the discounts, Intel was also said to have informed SIs (system integrators) and PC companies that they should supply the Socket 478 P4 processors first to the 845B0-based motherboards, so the current shortage of P4s will not have much impact on the new products.
Although the latest motherboards may not encounter the processor shortage, they are likely to face an extremely tight supply of DDR chips. At present, practically all of the chipset designers have DDR-based products. One industry source said that judging from the possible shipments from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel, Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) and VIA Technologies in December, total market demand will be around 52 million units. However, currently major DDR supplier Nanya Technology can only produce 16 million units per month and other DRAM manufacturers’ output is still limited.
Motherboard makers also have high expectations of the new product line. It is particularly the case for the first-tier companies, as they have not launched any motherboards based on VIA’s controversial chipsets. One first-tier board maker said that although the 845B0 boards will only hit the market in mid-December, the company estimated it will sell more 845B0 than SiS645 motherboards this month, with the sales ratio reaching 3:2.
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