Fred & Intel Investors - Intel Outlines its Mobile CPU Plans
Intel will be delivering up a bevy of CPUs for the notebook and sub notebook PC markets next year.
Dixon (0.25 micron Pentium II + 256K L2 cache) will most likely debut in a notebook early next year (or late this year) as well as Coppermine (a 0.18 micron Katmai with 256K L2 cache) in the second half of next year.
In addition, as I noted yesterday, Intel will stretch the Pentium MMX to 300 MHz for low cost notebooks next year - and will drive AMD and Cyrix crazy in the cheapo-cheapo production of low cost notebooks.
Intel shows no mercy to copy cats.
Paul
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news.com
Intel goes after notebook market
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 16, 1998, 5:30 p.m. PT
PALM SPRINGS, California--Intel will
release Celeron processors for notebook
computers in the $1,299 to $1,399 range in
the first half of 1999 in an effort not to miss
the next wave of low-cost computing.
In addition, the company has launched a new
line of extra low-power chips for
mini-notebooks. A new 266-MHz Pentium
MMX that uses less power than previous
266-MHz Pentium MMX notebook chips was
released today.
Processors for low-cost notebooks will likely
help fill what is becoming a large gap in the
market place.
Computer dealers have been reporting that
customers have been flocking to sub-$1,400
notebooks. Dealers on the Web say that it
only takes a few hours to clear out
inventories of such systems. Executives from
major computer vendors, however, have
maintained that most notebook buyers
demand price over performance. Most of
their new products, as a result, have come in
above the $2,000 price point.
Intel competitors
Cyrix and Advanced
Micro Devices
already have low-cost
chips for notebooks.
AMD is expected to
introduce another
notebook chip next
week.
Intel's plans also include a 300-MHz MMX,
which will come out in the first half of 1999,
according to Jason Ziller, platform marketing
manager at Intel, and then be followed by a
series of low-powered chips that are similar,
but different than current mobile Pentium IIs
and Celerons. Effectively, this will make a
third line of chips for Intel in mobile
computers.
Celeron processors with 128KB of
integrated cache memory for notebooks will
also come out in the first half of next year,
said Robert Jecman, vice president of the
Intel architecture business group.
For performance users, Intel will then follow
the Celerons with a "Coppermine" chip for
notebooks toward the start of the second half
that contains the Katmai new instructions that
improve graphics and video. (See related
story.)
"This is going to be a significant segment of
the mobile PC segment," Jecman said. "In
the $1,299 range, you will see mobile PCs
with Celeron processors at 300 MHz."
Jecman would not divulge speeds or
technical details on the upcoming chips, but
other sources did. The Celeron processors
for notebooks will likely come out at 233 MHz
and faster. The Coppermine chip will run at
faster than 500 MHz, according to other Intel
executives, and be made on the advanced
0.18-micron process.
The Coppermine chips will also contain in all
likelihood 256KB of integrated memory,
twice the amount of secondary cache
memory found on the Celeron chips.
Doubling the cache will improve processor
performance, said analysts, and allow Intel to
differentiate the Celeron offerings from the
Pentium II machines.
Other sources further added that a Pentium II
chip without the Katmai instructions but with
256KB of memory code named "Dixon" will
appear in the first quarter. This evolutionary
step is expected to appear on notebooks.
Intel is also expanding its offerings for
graphics chips for notebooks. Intel will
release a new 2D graphics chip based
around the 0.25-micron process toward the
end of the year. The chip will come out under
the Chips and Technologies brand name,
said sources close to the company.
Intel is also readying a 3D mobile chip,
code-named "Mount Blanc" toward 2000.
This will be the first graphics chip for
notebooks released under the Intel name.
Jecman added that the Coppermine chip will
in fact likely debut on notebooks.
In other mobile developments, technology to
better synchronize wireless communication
devices and computers, an effort known as "
Bluetooth," will begin to be implemented next
year. Bluetooth is aimed at creating
technological standards so that wireless
devices and PCs can connect by radio
frequencies.
In addition, hand-held computers based
around the StrongArm processor being
made by Intel are expected to come out in
1999.
The company also used its Developer
Conference for releasing new Mobile Power
Management Guidelines. The guidelines
specify recommendations for maximum
power consumption for notebooks and their
components.
The new guidelines specify separate
recommendations for standard notebooks
and mini-notebooks for the first time, Ziller
pointed out. The new standards do not lower
power consumption, he said, but show how
computer vendors can accommodate higher
levels of performance in the same thermal
parameters.
(Intel is an investor in CNET: The Computer
Network.)
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