Amy & Intel Investors - Intel May already be SHIPPING 1 GHz Coppermines.
Check this out -
"Intel vice president Albert Yu detailed the company's latest architectures, which included a disclosure that Intel is shipping a 1-GHz Coppermine microprocessor in "limited production quantities" to Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. "
If this is true, AMD may be SLIPPING in the MHz race !!!!
Paul
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techweb.com
Intel Looks To Plug Into Internet Revolution
By Mark Hachman, Electronic Buyers' News
Feb 15, 2000 (4:51 PM)
URL: techweb.com
Intel chairman Andrew S. Grove kicked off the latestIntel Developer Forum here in Palm Springs, Calif., today,tailoring many of the company's more common themes to appeal to a crowd of high-growth Internet-based startups.
Grove's keynote address was less a speech than a fireside chat, as he explained to executives from EToys.com, Commerce One, and Google.com how Intel's chips can be combined in ever-increasing numbers within their servers. Grove couched his address in terms of what he called the "powers of 10 revolution," a reference to a need by customers in the Internet service sector to expand their infrastructure rapidly.
Noting the demands associated with increased traffic to his company's website, an executive from Google.com, for example, said the search engine provider plans to add 30 machines a day to keep pace with its expanding audience. "It's a huge challenge to keep up with growth," added John Hranicek, vice president of engineering and chief information officer for E-Toys.
Grove reiterated Intel's corporate focus of "following the bits" from the PC client, through the network, and to the server. The company hopes to provide the hardware for new online services to take advantage of the boom in e-commerce, which analysts say will increase from a $400 billion market in 1999 to more than $7 trillion in just four years.
"The Internet is driven by customers, transactions, and power," Grove said, adding that it also "runs on silicon."
To that end, Intel vice president Albert Yu detailed the company's latest architectures, which included a disclosure that Intel is shipping a 1-GHz Coppermine microprocessor in "limited production quantities" to Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM.
While the race to reach the 1-GHz milestone may mean more from a marketing perspective than a technological one, Intel and rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices are both taking the challenge seriously. Even so, an executive for Dell Computer today characterized Intel's disclosure as a "technology announcement" and a part of collaborative engineering effort.
"We're not going to ship in volume until we are assured of volume production from Intel," the executive said, referring to Dell's difficulty in the fourth quarter obtaining adequate supplies of either Intel's fastest or lowest-priced processors.
On the technology front, Yu also demonstrated an air-cooled 1.5-GHz Willamette chip, Intel's next-generation microprocessor core. The Willamette core will feature a number of new Streaming SIMD Extensions, dubbed "SSE-2." The SSE-2 instructions will be optimized for algorithms such as security encryption, Yu said, with instructions like a 32x32 multiplier. The SSE-2 instructions can process 128-bit integer-based instructions and address two 64-bit floating-point instructions concurrently. Yu claimed the chip will be optimized for a 400-MHz bus.
Almost lost in the shuffle was Itanium, Intel's first 64-bit chip for the workstation market. Intel said previously the chip would ship at 800-MHz in its first iteration. Intel executives also displayed, but did demonstrate, a 4-way Itanium server.
Yu also updated Intel's official processor and production roadmap. In the first half of the year, Intel plans to announce 900-MHz Pentium III and Xeon processors, alongside an 800-MHz Celeron and 750-MHz mobile Pentium III. In the second half of the year, Intel said it will launch a 700-MHz Celeron and an 800-MHz mobile Pentium III. The company also plans to ramp both the Xeon and Pentium III Coppermine to more than 1 GHz. Industry sources say Willamette will launch at 1.4 GHz.
Yu also clarified issues surrounding the interface for the Timna processor, an integrated chip combining a DRAM controller and graphics interface. An Intel spokesman confirmed the Timna will be released with an SDRAM interface first, and with a Direct Rambus DRAM interface in a future version. Industry sources say Timna is targeted for a September launch at 667 MHz.
Additionally, Intel confirmed the existence of the 810e or Solano chipset, and said an improved version of the Solano for the mobile space will ship in the second half of the year.
And as previously reported by EBN, Yu confirmed that the Tehama core-logic chipset, which will support the Willamette processor, will feature a dual-channel interface to Direct Rambus memory. While that came as welcome news to proponents of the high-speed Rambus interface, Pat Gelsinger, vice president of Intel's Desktop Products Group, said Intel servers will use double-data-rate SDRAM exclusively beginning in 2001.
A key cog in Intel's machinery will be its fab production -- the company currently has five fabs operating with 0.18-micron production equipment. By the second half of the year, another 0.18-micron fab will be up and running, and Intel said it plans to transition to a 6-layer-metal, 0.13-micron process in 18 months.
Gelsinger also demonstrated working USB silicon supplied by NetChip, and announced partnerships with Sony to design inter-networked consumer appliances. A Beyond AGP 4X working group was also announced to extend Intel's graphics architecture into future devices.
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