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To: Paul Engel who wrote (91568)	11/2/1999 1:35:00 AM
From: Process Boy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul - Re: Rambus article. Good article. It also addresses the c't magazines report of 1/20 caching errors with Cumine 733 and i820: Rambus was reportedly at the heart of another reported anomaly, this one a caching error seen with 733MHz Pentium III chips, the 820 chip and early Rambus modules. This anomaly, first reported in the German magazine c't, happens only when the older Rambus modules are used and should not effect end users who purchase new PCs with the latest Rambus modules, Intel officials said. "With newer Rambus modules everything works fine," confirmed the IT manager who tested the 733MHz Pentium III and 820 with Rambus memory. "It seems that only the combination between Camino-Board and older Rambus modules is causing the cache error." Maybe this item can be put to rest now. PB

To: Paul Engel who wrote (91568)	11/3/1999 8:49:00 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul and thread, More on coppermine. Intel's Coppermine release signals new-product blitz -- Related 840 chipset expected to bolster Direct RDRAM architecture November 1, 1999 Mark Hachman Silicon Valley- Intel Corp. formally announced its Coppermine microprocessor line last week, leveraging its new 0.18-micron manufacturing process and adding a new wrinkle to the clock-speed race. Analysts generally viewed the launch as an opportunity for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company to flood the market with new components and proliferate the Direct Rambus DRAM memory architecture with the associated Intel 840 chipset. Intel cut the prices of its older chips to make room for the new devices, prompting Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., to make its own price cuts. Coppermine is the code name for an Intel Pentium III family with 256 Kbytes of on-chip cache that is manufactured on a 0.18-micron process with a 133-MHz frontside bus. The chip family was delayed after Intel encountered difficulties ramping the processor to target speeds. "In the '80s, we had a 'one-processor-fits-all' strategy," said Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Business Group. "In the '90s, we moved to our segmentation strategy. Now, we've tailored our products to the platform level of the Internet economy." Intel's nine desktop Coppermine offerings use the "B" designation to denote the new 133-MHz frontside bus, adding the "E" indicator to distinguish Coppermine chips from classic Pentium IIIs at the same clock speed. As others have suspected, the flip-chip FCPA package will eventually replace the module-based microprocessor, according to Pat Gelsinger, vice president and general manager of Intel's Desktop Products Group. "It's a technology-driven transition," he said. "If we could, we would have placed the L2 cache directly onto the die. ... But at 0.35 micron and 0.25 micron, we didn't have the transistor budget to allow us to do that." OEM and industry sources said a Camino relaunch is tentatively scheduled for mid-November, just before Comdex, although Intel has not confirmed the date. For notebook OEMs, shrinking the line widths to 0.18 micron results in a 32% drop in active power, according to Robert Jecmen, vice president of the Intel Architecture Business Group and general manager of the Mobile and Handheld Products Group. In total, a 500-MHz Coppermine based system will use about 11 W in typical applications, he said. Intel's most notable addition to the server and workstation market will be the Intel 840 chipset. Carmel, as the Intel 840 was previously known, featured the unexpected addition of a scalable configuration that allows up to 4 Gbytes of memory using a memory repeater. A two-chip "core configuration" provides two Rambus channels, but only 2 Gbytes of memory. The scalable configuration consists of two common I/O and memory controller chips, plus a P64H dual 64-bit PCI bridge and two memory repeaters, each sold separately. Somewhat surprisingly, the chipset will not support the intermediary 700-MHz Direct Rambus speed. Intel also debuted three Pentium III Xeon-brand Coppermines for the workstation market: 733-, 667-, and 600-MHz chips for two-processor implementations. Xeon cartridges have integrated a voltage- regulator chip and thermal sensor. AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif., remains a notch behind Intel, even with its introduction of a 700-MHz Athlon. The new chip is available for $699, while the 650- and 600-MHz Athlons are priced at $519 and $419, respectively. The 550- and 500-MHz parts have been reduced to $279 and $209. A company spokesman said the price cuts were scheduled, but adjusted to counter Intel's moves.