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To: Don Green who wrote (32059)	10/13/1999 8:07:00 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

Via defies Intel's P6-bus license ban by shipping new Apollo Pro chipset By Mark Hachman Electronic Buyers' News (10/12/99, 10:39:01 AM EDT) Via Technologies Inc.'s simmering legal contest with Intel Corp. took a step up in intensity this week when the company began shipping its Apollo Pro 133A chipset in what Intel claims is a clear case of patent infringement. The new P6-class chipset includes a 133-MHz front-side bus and an AGP 4X graphics connection, as well as an interface to PC133 SDRAM. The former two features include technology developed by Intel. Last summer, the Santa Clara, Calif., chip giant challenged Via's use of its front-side bus architecture and has since revoked all P6-related licenses. Intel also opened a suit against Via in a San Jose federal court, alleging patent infringement and breach of contract in addition to other charges. To defeat the restriction, Via, Taipei, Taiwan, has "subcontracted" with National Semiconductor Corp. to produce the chipset on a 3-layer, 0.35-micron process. Via claims its manufacturing relationship with Santa Clara-based National, which has a broad cross-licensing arrangement with Intel, offers it the security to design and sell chips that incorporate Intel technology. A spokesman for Intel declined to comment on the launch. As Intel plays out its legal card, the last-minute delay of its Camino/Direct Rambus DRAM platform late last month has robbed the market of a core-logic chipset and high-speed main memory tandem that was expected to fuel fourth-quarter sales for many desktop PC makers. Via appears perfectly positioned to exploit that blunder, according to observers, who say its Apollo Pro 133 family and support from PC133 SDRAM memory may yet emerge as the saving grace of the holiday season. Via claims the chipset, which is priced at $34 in OEM quantities, is in mass production. In addition, the chipset interfaces to NEC Electronics Inc.'s Virtual Channel Memory (VCM) DRAM core and can support up to four USB connectors, two more than existing Intel chipsets. The device also supports ATA-33 and ATA-66 storage interfaces. The chipset consists of the VT82C694X 510-pin BGA north bridge, and the VT82C596B, 324-pin BGA south bridge. ebnews.com

To: Don Green who wrote (32059)	10/13/1999 8:11:00 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

After Shortfall, Intel Has High Hopes For Q4 Addresses recent problems By Marcia Savage Santa Clara, Calif. 8:13 PM EST Tues., Oct. 12, 1999 Despite recent pricing pressures and some unanticipated bumps in its road map, Intel Corp. expects to end the year on a high note. The chip maker, based here, posted third-quarter earnings Tuesday that fell slightly short of Wall Street expectations. But Intel executives said they expect revenue for the fourth quarter to be up from the third quarter. "We expect strong seasonal demand for all products," said Andy Bryant, Intel's senior vice president and chief financial officer in a conference call with analysts Tuesday. Average selling prices were lower than expected, citing Intel's gain of market share in the low-priced processor segment and the delayed introduction of the high-performance Pentium III chips produced on 0.18-micron process technology, Bryant said. The company's recent acquisitions also put pressure on earnings. Intel acquired four companies during the third quarter: Dialogic Corp., Parsippany, N.J.; Level One Communications Inc., Sacramento, Calif.; Softcom Microsystems Inc., Fremont, Calif.; and NetBoost Corp., Mountain View, Calif. Including acquisition-related costs, Intel said its net income was $1.5 billion or 42 cents per diluted share on revenue of $7.3 billion. That compares with net income of $1.6 billion or 44 cents per diluted share on revenue of $6.7 billion posted for the year-ago quarter. Excluding acquisition-related costs, net income was $1.9 billion or 55 cents per diluted share. That result missed by 2 cents analysts' consensus estimate of 57 per diluted share, according to First Call Corp. Acquisition-related costs included $333 million in one-time charges and $121 million of amortization of goodwill and other intangibles. "On a geographic basis, demand remains strong," said Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager, Intel Architecture Business Group. "At this point, we believe our supply of materials from Taiwan-based manufacturers is not impacted." Otellini spent some time Tuesday addressing some of Intel's recent problems, including the last-minute cancellation of the Rambus-supporting 820 chipset due to a technical problem. The company is continuing "validation activity" on the chipset. Intel expects to ship the chipset sometime in the fourth quarter, he said. Otellini added that none of the upcoming Coppermine chips produced on 0.18-micron will be stalled due to the 820 delay. Problems with its most recent Pentium III Xeon chips has been resolved, he said. The flaw showed up in eight-way servers using 550MHz Xeons with 512Kbyte or 1Mbyte of Level 2 cache with Intel's Saber motherboard. Asked whether Intel's recent troubles, from the delayed Merced to the 820, were random or representative of a systemic problem, Otellini said he preferred to call them random. The Merced problem was related to the complexity of the 64-bit project, and occurred over a year ago, he said. Since then, Intel has been on schedule for producing the chip in mid-2000. As for the 820, he said: "The problems are fundamentally tied up in our ability to debug a new technology between us, Rambus, our OEMs and board suppliers. That's a very complicated technology. Moving to the next generation is always a little more difficult than people give us credit for," he said. Overall, Intel is moving its road map faster than it has in the past due to competitive pressures and market demands, he said. "I believe we've put in place corrective actions in our engineering teams to be able to do a better job of hitting our commitments internally and to our customers," Otellini said. crn.com