Tejman, speaking of demand for Intel's products, they will throw out enough new products in 1999 to at least give their customers a chance to fall all over themselves buying. Check out the article at the bottom, which came out of this week's Intel Developers' Forum. Intel's plans for 1999 being their biggest ever for new product introductions surprised me somewhat, even as a close watcher of Intel. Of course, Intel plans to be in production for some new products on 0.18 micron starting about 6/99, and ramp up more new products on 0.18 after that. In fact, it also came out this week that Intel will have TWO 0.18 micron processes, one for processors and one for peripheral chips. Separation of 0.18 lines at Intel must mean more equipment is required by them. Anyone know for sure?
www3.techstocks.com
Should net out to a lot of equipment orders to AMAT et al for 0.18, and from Intel's competitors as well ( they'll have to follow or else!). Hope the article hasn't been shown here yet.
ebnews.com
Intel's Barrett Plans For Most "Intense"
Year Yet
(5:00 p.m. EDT, 9/15/98)
By Mark Hachman
Speaking at the opening morning of the Intel Developers' Forum,
Intel Corp. president and chief executive officer Craig Barrett
promised 1999 would become the most intense year of new
processor introductions in the company's history, despite what
some analysts are calling an industry downturn.
While some companies may hesitate and let their competitors get
ahead in a down cycle, Intel intends to aggressively pursue
processor and other technology introductions in the coming year.
"I guess the message I'd like to get out is don't let the cycle, the
economic cycle, get you down," added Albert Yu, senior
vice-president of Intel's Microprocessor Products Group.
Barrett and Yu conceptually addressed new processor and
technology introductions past the turn of the century. Merced,
Intel's forthcoming 64-bit chip, is still on track to enter
production by mid-2000, while its successor, McKinley, is now
slated for production in the second half of 2001, according to
Intel.
Meanwhile, Intel's existing 32-bit processor roadmap will also
move forward, with new devices scheduled for introduction up
through McKinley's launch and beyond. And in a sign of what's to
come on the desktop PC, the company demonstrated a Pentium II
running at approximately 800 MHz.
Confirming earlier reports, executives also said that Intel's
0.18-micron microprocessors - named Coppermine and
Cascades - would integrate an undisclosed amount of level 2
cache directly onto the die.
Barrett used his talk as a platform to convince developers that the
copper interconnect and Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) processes
used by Motorola, IBM and other semiconductor makers are not
the way to increasing performance within a microprocessor.
Instead, Barrett said that Intel will concentrate first upon
increasing the speed of the transistors within the chip, moving to
the faster copper interconnect process only in its 0.13-micron
generation.
Analysts disputed Intel's strategy, however, saying that the effects
upon a processor's performance are about equally split between
the performance of the transistors and the interconnects. Peter
Glaskowsky, a multimedia analyst with MicroDesign Resources,
Sunnyvale, Calif., drew an analogy between the flow of data
upon a chip and the flow of traffic in a network of connected
streets. "If you eliminate the traffic lights, my commute will be
faster," he said. "But if you raise the speed limit, my commute
gets shorter as well."
The opening morning of the IDF also sought to prepare
developers for the imminent launch of Katmai, the forthcoming
450 and 500 MHz 32-bit chips that Intel has promised OEMs it
will ship in the first quarter of 1999. While reiterating the
technical aspects of the Katmai's new instructions, such as the
application of single instructions to multiple, floating-point
instructions, Intel said that early tests revealed a 10%
improvement over MMX for multimedia-specific instructions. At
peak bandwidth, the Katmai's new instructions should offer 2
GFLOPS floating-point calculations, Yu said.
In his presentation, Barrett also stressed the need for easier to
use PCs that are more secure and have more available
bandwidth. On that front, Barrett said that forthcoming Intel
products, such as the company's chipsets, which will have both
manageability and security features built into them. "The [Intel]
roadmap will become more complex, requiring us to work
together," Barrett said. "We have to transcend the marketplace."
To allow OEMs access to the increasingly diverse array of
support documents, specifications, and other printed materials,
Intel has formed the Intel University Press, a publishing unit
devoted to dispensing literature authored by Intel and the
industry. |
