National Semi's plans include MPEG2, using technology it obtained from Mediamatics..........
techweb.com
National Semi Preps Network PC On Heels Of Cyrix Bid
(09/18/97; 5:30 p.m. EDT)
By Anthony Cataldo, EE Times
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- With its acquisition of Cyrix still hanging fire, National Semiconductor is already mapping out a bold plan -- which may include other, smaller acquisitions -- to take a leading role in developing low-cost PCs.
In the next year, the company will introduce peripheral chips combining key multimedia and communications functions that could be tied to forthcoming processors from Cyrix and eventually integrated into one device, president and chief executive Brian Halla said.
One of the planned chips will attempt to consolidate several communications functions by combining a 16-bit RISC<Picture> engine, 10/100-megabit Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus 1394, and a modem controller. A key feature will be a capability called "smart node," which uses the RISC processor to manage the influx of Internet packets coming from various "push" technology services without disrupting the CPU<Picture>.
"The smart 16-bit RISC sits on a node with a lookup table and sorts out the junk mail without waking up the Pentium," Halla said in an interview with EE Times.
Another product being planned will integrate 2-D and 3-D graphics, I/O, MPEG-2, Dolby AC-3 audio, and an NTSC TV interface. That combination would provide all the functionality needed for DVD<Picture> video and PC graphics. National obtained its MPEG technology from its purchase of Mediamatics, in Fremont, Calif., and is in the process of acquiring 3-D technology from the outside.
"We're talking to multiple 3-D companies," Halla said. "We are looking at the acquisition of a design team."
A little more than a year after taking the helm upon Gil Amelio's departure for Apple, Halla in July made his gutsiest moves yet by bidding to buy Cyrix, in Richardson, Texas, for $550 million and staking National's future on the sub-$1,000 PC. It's a market Halla said he believes has only begun to blossom, and he's out to prove that cheap doesn't mean users will be left wanting.
"Don't equate sub-$1,000 to low performance," Halla said. "We're going to continue to invest in new process technology and push clock speeds and performance. It's not that we want a bloodbath with AMD and Intel. But even sub-$500 PC [OEMs] demand road maps that get them to the next level of performance."
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It's a market Halla said he believes has only begun to blossom, and he's out to prove that cheap doesn't mean users will be left wanting.
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To get there, Halla has placed a high priority on leading-edge process technology. The company's 0.25-micron process is now in the pilot stage at its R&D facility in Santa Clara, Calif., and Halla said he expects to transfer the process to a new 8-inch wafer fab in South Portland, Maine, for production by mid-1998. Halla said National will likely drive the new process technology with Cyrix's M2 microprocessor, the follow-on to the 6X86 device.
National wasn't always on the cutting edge of process technology. When Halla joined the company last year, the Maine site was only a foundation and the newest steppers National had were only capable of 0.65 micron. Frustrated, Halla ditched the steppers, approved a $100 million budget to develop 0.35-micron technology, and ordered a construction crew to work three shifts a day to finish the fab. The total cost was just under $1 billion.
Meanwhile, Halla was looking for new technologies to acquire that would complement National's systems-on-a-chip thrust. Talks with Cyrix began six months ago as discussions of chip sets for Cyrix processors. The conversation soon turned toward the idea of a merger. Halla said he was impressed by Cyrix's design team, which had crafted 20 microprocessor unit designs in 10 years.
At first, some National executives feared alienating Intel; Advanced Micro Devices; and IBM, which builds the Cyrix 6X86 and MediaGX processors. But Halla was still leaning toward an acquisition, and a nod from Eckhard Pfeiffer, chief executive at Houston-based Compaq, only reinforced his conviction. He made the phone call giving the go-ahead after having "a revelation in the shower" one morning.
No Regrets To Speak Of
Halla said he has no regrets. "We still have a good partnership with Intel, and we also have a good partnership with AMD making chip sets for their K6 processor,'' he said. "We feel we've had good feedback from all fronts." As for IBM, National will continue to use the company as a foundry to build processors.
SGS-Thomson Microelectronics, which is one of National's biggest competitors in analog integrated circuits, will no longer be considered a second source for the Cyrix processors. Still, the loss of SGS-Thomson will have little effect, since the company was unable to manufacture the chips. Instead, National is expanding its foundry relationships with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Chartered Semiconductor, and Tower Semiconductor, Halla said. He expects TSMC to be the first to build Cyrix processors.
Halla said National is well on its way to building a single-chip Internet appliance. "We have all the building blocks," he said. "We have the CPU, audio, graphics, MPEG, AC-3, NTSC, PAL, 1394, USB, north bridge, and south bridge. We're using the same [design] methodology as Cyrix and Mediamatics. Initially, it will be three chips, but ultimately, we're looking at a PC on a chip."
Taking The Antagonist Route?
A single-chip PC may be a laudable goal, but whether National can go that route without antagonizing Intel remains to be seen. Halla, however, said the company will largely steer clear of Intel by focusing on low-cost Internet appliances while Intel continues to push performance at the high end. "It's good news that Wintel continues its momentum and sets standards for PCs," he said.
In the long run, Halla said he expects Internet appliances to make up the bulk of the market, because the technology exists to drive costs down for consumers of all income levels.
National's attempt to piece together all the components of a PC on as few chips as possible is the product of Halla's vision of the future of computing, which he calls "distributed processing." Rather than rely on a large processing engine to perform multiple tasks, Halla advocates using smaller, functionally specific processing engines and tying them together.
For Halla's vision to succeed, National will have to prove it can supply all the system building blocks on its own. Traditionally, PC vendors have been able to decide which devices are used on a board, though Intel's dominance in processors and chip sets has skewed that model somewhat, said Mark Kirstein, a senior analyst with In-Stat, in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"Distributed processing makes a ton of sense from a technical standpoint, because you don't generally want to funnel data through one central resource and funnel it back out," he said. "But it doesn't make sense unless you control all the pieces." |
