AMD's roadmap will take the mobile K6-2 to market by yearend 98 followed by K6-3/256KB L2
Intel's rivals go after notebooks
Mark Hachman
Silicon Valley- Led by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., several of Intel Corp.'s
chip rivals have unveiled a sweeping campaign to challenge Intel's dominance as
a supplier of notebook-PC microprocessors and low-cost integrated chipsets.
AMD last week announced low-power 266- and 300-MHz versions of the K6
chip, offering Intel its first serious challenge in the notebook-PC market.
Likewise, graphics vendor Trident Microsystems Inc. said it has teamed with
Via Technologies Inc. and a second supplier to design an integrated chipset that
combines a discrete graphics chip and core logic in a single product aimed at
notebooks.
AMD's formal campaign to supply processors to notebook-PC makers should
have a serious effect on the market, analysts said. The desktop market has
already been affected by lower-priced devices from both AMD and National
Semiconductor's Cyrix Corp. subsidiary, which have buoyed the rise of the
sub-$1,000 desktop PC.
"We're aiming to build on the success of the desktop market," said Martin
Booth, product marketing manager for the Computational Products Group at
AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif. "We think there's a big opportunity for a new level of
price and performance."
AMD has pledged to continue its practice of discounting its chips 25% vs. an
Intel processor with equivalent performance. In 1,000-unit lots, its new
300-MHz chip costs $229, and the 266-MHz version is priced at $159.
Based on AMD's track record in the desktop arena, analysts said the trend
toward lower processor prices for notebook computers was inevitable.
The new chips are "a natural," said analyst Jonathan Joseph of San
Francisco-based NationsBanc Montgomery Securities, noting that AMD
controls about half of the sub-$1,000-PC market.
The added cost of flat panels and other components will bring the starting price
of a low-priced notebook to about $1,200, Joseph said.
AMD, Via, and the other Intel rivals are often dubbed the "Socket 7 camp"-all
endorse the Socket 7 chip interface that Intel abandoned for its own Slot 1
standard of connecting a microprocessor inside a PC.
Last week's announcements may also trigger a regrouping for Socket 7
members. For example, manufacturing problems put the kibosh on AMD's
earlier efforts to announce a mobile K6; and in January, AMD said only
Compaq and IBM would be allowed to use special mobile versions of the K6
manufactured in a 0.25-micron process.
AMD last week announced only a single design win, with Compaq's Presario
notebook line.
"We've had a limited engagement until fairly recently," Booth said. "The
capacity hadn't really caught up. That changed the last quarter or so, and now
we have the product, capacity, and roadmap."
AMD's roadmap will take the mobile version of its K6-2 to market by year's
end, followed afterward by its mobile "Sharktooth," or K6-3, a chip with 256
Kbytes of level 2 cache.
In 1999, Booth said, the mobile K6-2 and Sharktooth will coexist in the market,
providing AMD with its own segmentation strategy to take on Intel's Dixon
mobile processor, which has 256 Kbytes of L2 cache, as well as Intel's older
mobile Pentium MMX.
The mobile K6 chips have been specially tested to operate at up to 85degreesC.
The 300-MHz chip runs at 2.1 V, and consumes 6.6 W under typical use in
either a BGA or a PGA package.
Socket 7 members have also squabbled among themselves over chipsets. Via
competes heavily with Silicon Integrated Systems Inc., another Taiwanese
chipset supplier. After SIS announced its own integrated 3D/logic chipset in
July, Via executives said their company was forced to disclose its Apollo MVP4
chipset while concealing its relationship with Trident.
At the time, Via didn't have a license to use Trident's graphics-chip technology.
But the two companies were bound by a relationship between Via chief
executive Wen-Chi Chen and Trident's Gerry Liu, senior vice president of
product marketing, who were classmates in Taiwan, according to a spokesman
for Trident, Mountain View, Calif.
Trident's core is a version of its next-generation Porsche core, slated for
demonstration around the Comdex time frame, according to Liu. However, no
actual performance metrics are currently available.
Fellow chipset supplier Acer Labs Inc. is reported to have developed a version
of its Aladdin chipset family with Trident as well. "It would be a logical
conclusion," Liu said.
Acer executives refused to confirm or deny the report, admitting only that
chipsets integrating graphics and logic are forthcoming. Acer's existing M1533
south bridge, one half of its Aladdin V chipset, is optimized for the notebook
segment with special power-management features and low-power modes, said
Nancy Hartsoch, Acer's vice president of marketing for its U.S. operations in
San Jose.
"The question that the industry has been asking is, how long will [the] Socket 7
[interface] live?" she said. "We think it will live for quite a while, particularly in
the notebook market." |
