Tony & Intel Investors - Intel will Unveil StrongARM-based Set Top Boxes later this year and a bevy of x86 processors in 1999.
Xeons with 700 MHz speed and 600 MHz Pentium IIs are also on tap for 1999 ! 256K L2 Dixon will appear as well as Katmai in the FIRST QUARTER on 1999.
Cascades is also discussed and is revealed to be a 0.18 micron Katmai with a WHOPPING 512K L2 cache on the CPU chip! I think Intel is ebuliiently confident in their ability to make VERY HIGH YIELDING HUGE SILICON CPUs
Intel is taking the StrongARM architecture and pushing it into all the areas where the x86 was not a good fit due to cost and power.
Intel's sphere of influence will keep expanding !
Paul
{==============================}
news.com
Intel eyes set-top
computers
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 15, 1998, 12:55 p.m. PT
update PALM SPRINGS, California--Intel will
start to place chips in set-top boxes later this
year and come out with enhanced Pentium II
and Xeon processors by the second half of
1999, according to company executives.
The multifaceted development effort reflects
the company's never-ending quest to expand
its market share.
Intel's new StrongARM chip architecture,
acquired from Digital Equipment, will make
Intel a player in handheld and TV set-top
computers, said Craig Barrett, Intel's CEO
and president, speaking at the Intel
Developer Forum here.
These are two markets where it has no real
presence but which could turn into huge
markets in the future.
"The StrongARM is complementary to the
Intel architecture. It is great for handheld
devices, great for set-top boxes, great for
[other] devices," Barrett said. "You can
expect to see new [StrongARM]
architectures roll out on a biannual basis."
Intel's other chips also get an architectural
refreshing every two years.
StrongARM is not based on Intel's x86
architecture--which is used in more than 90
percent of PCs today--but a new low power,
RISC (reduced instruction set computing)
design.
The first set-top boxes powered by
StrongARM processors will appear later this
year, added Barrett. Handheld devices
running Windows CE and based on the
StrongARM chip will also come out in 1999,
said other sources. This chip will likely start
to show up in servers as specialized
processors, he noted.
At the same time, new markets increase
development complexity for the company.
Indeed, market segmentation--the reigning
mantra at Intel--comes as both an opportunity
and a curse, according to executives.
"The computer industry as a whole is
increasingly segmented into different classes
of computers," Barrett said. "It just multiplies
the complexity for all of us."
With its commitment to StrongARM, Intel will
be coming to market with five families of
microprocessors: a Xeon line for servers; the
Pentium II line for performance PCs; the
Celeron line for basic PCs; a mobile
Pentium II line; and StrongARM. By
mid-2000, the picture expands again with the
release of Merced, the 64-bit processor for
high-end computing systems.
To resolve this issue, Barrett said that Intel
will call upon the hardware and software
industries to hammer out technological
standards to make bringing products to
market easier. Intel will also continue to
invest in research and development
Intel, he added, is also committed to making
each of these product lines easier to use,
with enhancements such as speech
recognition, richer 3D graphics, and vastly
improved security for electronic commerce.
PC support costs, he added, should be
decreased by 30 percent per year going
forward.
Also, the pace of technological advancement
is accelerating. In the past, it took Intel
roughly three years to move from one
generation of manufacturing technology to
the next. Now, Intel will graduate from the
0.25-micron manufacturing process to the
succeeding 0.18-micron process in two
years.
Barrett and Albert Yu, vice president of
microprocessors at Intel, laid out Intel's
microprocessor road map through 1999 and
beyond. While there were few surprises, the
executives provided a number of details that
previously were not officially confirmed.
Intel in 1999: What to expect
Xeon: 700-MHz chips made under the 0.18 micron process.
Pentium II: 600-MHz chips by end of year. Katmai ("MMX 2")
technology in Q1. Chips with 256K integrated cache memory
will appear in the first half, before coming in the Celeron line.
Hardware support: Native support for USB (universal serial
bus), DVD, and TV tuner add-in cards.
Celeron: 100-MHz bus in the first half. Technology will lag
Pentium II to preserve segmentation. Far in future: integration
with graphics chips a possibility.
Mobile: Celeron mobile chips in Q1, chips with integrated
cache memory to follow.
For performance PCs, Intel will release a
new generation of chips called Katmai in
early 1999. The Katmai Pentium II chips will
come with 70 new processor instructions that
will enhance 3D performance and video
playback. "The idea of the Katmai New
Instructions is very similar in nature to what
we did with MMX," said Yu.
The first Katmai chips will run at 450-MHz
and 500-MHz and be made on the
0.25-micron manufacturing process.
By the second half, Intel will roll out
"Coppermine," a Katmai chip manufactured
on the more advanced 0.18-micron process
that will also contain integrated cache
memory similar to the recently released,
"improved" Celeron processors.
The Coppermine chips will contain 256K of
secondary cache, according to sources.
Speeds will range up to 600-MHz and
beyond, said sources. These chips will also
come in the Organic Land Grid Array
(OLGA) packaging, which allows for better
connectivity.
For Basic PCs, Intel will boost the speed of
Celeron to 366-MHz in the first half of 1999,
said Yu. Sources said that will expand to
400-MHz in the second half. At that point,
Celeron processors will also graduate from
the older 66-MHz bus--or data path--to the
100-MHz bus currently used by more
advanced Pentium II chips.
Servers and workstations will see the
appearance of a 450-MHz Xeon processor
in the near future while a 500-MHz Katmai
chip will appear in the first half of 1999. While
the first 450-MHz chips will only be used in
one- and two-processor configurations,
servers using four Xeons at once at 450-MHz
and beyond will appear in the first part of
1999.
In the second half, "Cascades" will come out.
Like Coppermine, this will be a Katmai chip
made on the 0.18-micron process with
integrated cache memory, said Yu. Intel will
likely include 512K of on-cache memory on
this chip.
For mobile computers, Intel will release a
333-MHz Pentium II in the first half. Sources
say this will include 256K of integrated cache
memory. Intel will also begin to release
Celeron processors for the mobile segment.
Merced is on track for a mid-2000 release,
both Barrett and Yu added. Yu, however,
added for the first time that there is a
successor to Merced called McKinley that
will come out in the second half of 2001, just
a year after Merced ,that will provide "twice
the performance" of Merced.
"It [McKinley] will be in production in the
second half of 2001," he said.
Analysts have said the existence of the
successor at a period so close in time could
hurt Merced's chances as a viable product.
Still, the rapid pace of a change is becoming
a fact of life. Designs on a third generation
are under way and it will appear in 2002 or
later. In addition, the next-generation of 32-bit
processors will come out in the same time
frame as McKinley and the third generation.
The diversification of the product line has
also made some analysts speculate that Intel
will impose more job cuts than the 3,000
announced earlier this year. Barrett,
however, indicated that no further cuts were
slated. Intel may not hire more people, but
further reductions at the present do not seem
to be required. "What we would like to do is
to continue to grow without doing a head
count cut," he said, adding, "We did a lot of
hiring in the past two years."
Barrett also added that Intel is still fighting its
lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission
and that not much has changed. There is little
disagreement on the facts. The
disagreement comes in the interpretation of
the facts under the law. The FTC maintains
that Intel violated antitrust law by breaking off
development arrangements with third party
computer vendors as a way to bargain
intellectual property out of the computer
vendors.
Barrett also added that Intel is not exercising
monopoly power.
"We've had quarters of flat revenue and
earnings," he said. "We're a pretty crummy
monopoly."
Intel is an investor in CNET: The Computer
Network.
Tech Talk...
Join the discussion!
Go to Front Door | Computing | Search
Short takes | All the Headlines |
