Intel Investors - Intel has let the KAT out of the BAG!
According to this presentation by Intel's Mike Aymar, the Katmai has seen its first silicon and is being sampled to key customers!
All of this BEFORE the official DESCHUTES introduction!
Looks like the K6-3D may have some stiff competition for MIND SHARE among the software development community!
Developer's will have to decide to write for a low volume 266 MHz K6-3D with only 20 new FP instructions or a 450 MHz high volume Katmai with 70 new floating point enhanced MMX instructions! Tough choice!
Read it below - and note the other tid bits that are discussed - such as a new AGP PRO specification for the upcoming 450xx workstation/server chip set.
There's even a little crumb for FUCHI! Aymar discussed a Celeron-based minimal Set Top Internet box for $399.
Intel beats NSM to the punch for the "Peoples Computer Appliance"!
Paul
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infoworld.com
WinHEC: Intel adjusts to market
segmentation
By Ephraim Schwartz
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 3:02 PM PT, Mar 26, 1998
ORLANDO, Fla. -- In what appeared at first to be a rehash of the Intel processor road map for 1998 and 1999, Mike Aymar, vice president for Intel's Consumer Product Group, dropped some surprising new details on an audience of road-weary Independent Hardware
Vendors attending the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference here this week.
Aymar also reviewed plans for processors, chip sets, and "initiatives" for servers, desktops, mobile systems, and consumer devices, from PCs to set-top boxes.
Aymar told the audience that the old Intel product road map with a processor coming in at the high end of performance and cost and working its way down to low-cost systems as volumes increase does not work anymore.
"It doesn't work for processors, chips sets, or operating systems. We need to design specific products for specific segments," Aymar said, alluding to Intel's newest hobbyhorse it calls market segmentation.
However, segmentation may be more than just good for the consumer.
"Intel has to diversify beyond processor performance because it's just not providing the growth in margin they are used to. Ten years from now they won't be just a microprocessor company," said Dave Vellante, senior vice president at International Data Corp., in
Framingham, Mass. "But the problem is when they branch out into new areas, it's not nearly as compelling a story."
In the workstation segment, Aymar surprised the audience of hardware developers when he announced that Intel would create a specific chip set for graphics workstations that would include Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) Pro. The chip set, in the 450 family, would meet the
higher power needs of professional graphics cards by sending more power to a graphics module.
AGP Pro will have the same specifications internally but have more connectors to feed more power to the graphics card, Aymar said.
Intel as a company appears to have given up on denying the existence of new chips and code-names. Aymar laid out processor plans for 1999 and discussed the next IA-32 chip, code-name Katmai.
The audience was treated once again to some new information when Aymar told them that Katmai would include 70 "or so" new instructions for floating point.
"It will do for floating point what MMX did for graphics," Aymar said. The technology is called SIMD, for Single Instruction Multiple Data, and Aymar explained that with the new instructions, a processor will be able to work on multiple pieces of data instructions in parallel. Samples are shipping now to system OEMs, but product is not expected until 1999, Aymar said.
On the mobile front, Aymar ended speculation that notebook computers in 1999 would use the same 100-MHz bus as desktops.. The road map clearly stated that 66-MHz systems will continue through 1999.
Intel will also begin a major consumer effort this year with the rollout of three versions of a set-top box.
The Set-top PC will include the Celeron processor, and it will be a fully functional PC and also will work with a TV. It will sell for about $999.
The Enhanced Set-top Computer will include a DVD drive, and have some computing capabilities, Aymar said. No price was given.
The Set-top Computer, will be a basic system, with some Web and digital video access, running over a regular telephone line for an Internet connection. It will sell for $399.
Intel Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif., can be reached at intel.com.
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