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To: pompsander who wrote (28385)	9/1/1999 8:11:00 PM
From: Jdaasoc	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Pomp: We were expecting this announcement for about a month. I was led to believe PC133 on 133 mHz FSB is about 5% overall faster than PC100 on 100 mHz FSB. Note no retrenchment from RDRAM support starting at hi-end to entry level over next two years. john developer.intel.com IDF update: Intel confirms support for PC133; will use current specs By Jack Robertson Electronic Buyers' News (09/01/99, 07:38:44 PM EDT) Intel Corp. late today made it official: the company will add support of PC133 SDRAM to its chipset line, citing a near-term lack of availability of the Direct Rambus DRAM architecture it has been promoting for nearly three years. Peter MacWilliams, an Intel fellow and director of platform architecture for the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker, said the support of PC133 will have no effect on the company's planned transition to Direct RDRAM. "As soon as Direct Rambus production ramps up, we expect to move rapidly to the new memory chip," MacWilliams said today at the semi-annual Intel Developer Forum in Palm Springs, Calif. While Intel confirmed its support, the company's endorsement was somewhat lukewarm based on its assessment that PC133 showed little performance increase over the PC100 SDRAM interface now used in most PCs. "It will be widely available in the market and the higher speed essentially comes at no extra premium, so why not use it?" MacWilliams said. "Basically it is lack of Direct RDRAM availability. We see PC133 as an interim memory co-existing with Direct Rambus through 2001," he added The Intel executive said customers ultimately will determine how fast the market moves from PC133 to Direct Rambus. "Intel strongly supports an early transition to Direct Rambus," he said. "However, there are market forces we don't control. We want to remain flexible to provide what the market wants." Intel did not reveal which of its upcoming chipsets will support the interface, although industry sources have suggested that the Solano device, slated for introduction next year, is a strong candidate. Intel would only say support for PC133 will come in the first half of 2000. MacWilliams said Intel will adopt the current PC133 industry standard, scotching earlier reports by EBN that the company might develop a slightly different 133-MHz specification. He cautioned, however, that Intel is studying whether any interface changes may be needed to enable it to bring chipsets supporting the interface to market. MacWilliams also confirmed that Intel has dropped the hybrid S-RIMM modules that could use either Direct Rambus or SDRAM chips. Instead, it will use the Memory Translator Hub (MTH), previously reported as a switch on the PC motherboard that can connect either Direct RDRAM RIMMs or SDRAM DIMMs. While Rambus availability has been in question for some months, Intel said progress is, in fact, being made. Four memory producers will be in production in the third quarter with 128-Mbit Direct RDRAMs. This is expected to increase to five by year's end and to as many as eight in the first quarter. MacWilliams said two vendors are expected to bring the first 256-Mbit Direct Rambus chips to production in the second quarter next year.