It looks like things are changing rapidly in the PC industry. The days of high profit margins are gone, unless chip makers cut production costs big time and accelerate production.
This means much cheaper computers, but many more of them as sub $500 computers will make the "PC in every home" vision a reality.
Most of us accept the premise that Cymer lasers cannot be bypassed in the race to sub .18 micron features. But would you guess that the shift will happen sooner or later if the cheaper PC market explodes?
Walter
Monday April 6, 9:14 am Eastern Time
National Semiconductor plans single chip PC
SANTA CLARA, Calif, April 6 (Reuters) - National Semiconductor Corp said Monday it will put an entire PC system on a single chip by mid-1999, a
move that should dramatically lower the cost of PCs for manufacturers and consumers.
The single chip would replace the 12 or more separate chips typically found in a PC today and expand the entry-level market for PCs.
National said its PC on a chip is being built around microprocessor cores developed by Cyrix, the processor company it acquired in November.
National plans to make the chips at its new wafer fabrication facility in Maine on 0.25-micron process technology that can be further scaled down to 0.18 micron .
The plant has a capacity of 30,000 wafers a month, and National said it can also draw on partners for additional capacity, including Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSM - news; 2330.TW) and International Business Machines Corp (IBM - news). National said responsibility for
coordinating the first chip will go to its design center in Herzlia, Israel, which has designed many of the peripheral chips that surround the processor on a
typical PC motherboard.
National said it is defining versions of the chip for major PC and information appliance makers. Versions are in the works for the desktop market, where
it will give consumers smaller, quieter machines, and the notebook market, where the low power drain of the super-integrated chip will extend battery life
for portable users, the company said. |
