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To: gnuman who wrote (51099)	8/24/2000 10:41:05 PM
From: Sam P.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com Capacity Worry as Vendors Strive to AMD Memory Taiwan's three core logic vendors along with a number of Taiwanese mainboard makers and memory makers from Europe, the United States, Japan and Korea have announced that they will team up with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to provide PCs that utilize the company's new Athlon 1GHz CPU (see Fig) and 266MHz DDR (double data rate) memory . For its part, VIA Technologies Inc is ready to supply core logic for a majority of AMD's CPUs. "We can ship about 22 million parts that support AMD CPUs this year," Wen Chi Chen, president of VIA, said during the Computex exhibition in Taiwan in June. AMD's new Athlon comes in six internal speed ranges from 750MHz to 1GHz. Frontside bus speed will initially be 200MHz but will move to 266MHz this year. "One of the keys to making DDR 266 memory work is having the frontside bus work at the same speed as the memory interface," said Ron Huff of AMD. "The higher frontside bus speed will cut down the latency time between the CPU and the DDR memory." Mass production of the new Athlon (codenamed "Thunderbird") is set for the third quarter of 2000. Samples of the CPU were available at Computex but all were not equal. Initially, the new CPU will be offered in both Slot A and Socket A packages. "We will phase out the Slot A package though," said Huff. "In about three months, we will be concentrating on Socket A packages." AMD has a target to produce 25 million CPUs this year and is relying on Taiwanese core logic vendors to supply the majority of chipsets. "About half of these 25 million CPUs will be Athlons," said Hector Ruiz, president and chief operating officer for AMD. Half Way to 266DDR The most important component though, for a move towards 266DDR (266MHz DDR), is support from Taiwan's core logic companies. At Computex, all three Taiwanese core logic vendors talked of having 266DDR products but not until at least the third quarter of this year. All showed mainboards with supposed DDR core logic and memory but none were up and running. Taiwan's core logic vendors are half way to DDR with their latest Athlon products. At Computex, both VIA and Silicon Integrated Systems were offering 133MHz core logic which supports the Athlon and 133MHz SDRAM. VIA's offering is the VIA Apollo KT133 Chipset. It supports a 200MHz FSB, PC133 memory, AGP4X/ATA-66 linked to AMD's new Socket A platform. The VIA Apollo KT133 is a two-chip set, consisting of the VT8363 North Bridge and the VT82C686A "Super" South Bridge. Besides supporting AMD's Athlon CPU with a 200MHz frontside bus, VIA's new product also supports AGP4X, up to 2.0 Gbytes of 100/133MHz SDRAM and VCM memory types,PCI 2.2, ATA 33/66, 4 USB ports, an integrated AC-Link for AC-97 audio and HSP Modem, an integrated Super I/O and Hardware Monitoring and integrated KBC, RTC. The KT133 consists of the North Bridge 552-lead BGA VT8363 chip and the 352-lead BGA VT82C686A South Bridge chip. The VIA Apollo KT133 chipset is manufactured at TSMC in a 0.35 micron, three metal layer process. The VIA Apollo KT133 chipset is in volume production now and is priced at US$34 in OEM quantities. SiS offers even further integration with their new Athlon offering. Built upon SiS630, the SiS730S integrates the north bridge chip, the south bridge chip, and an enhanced 128-bit 3D graphics accelerator (SiS300) into a single chip. It delivers high quality data transferring capabilities including 56K Modem, Fast Ethernet, 1/10Mb Home PNA and IDE ATA100. It provides hardware DVD playback, flexible dual view display and 3D positional audio. With PC133 SDRAM support, the SiS730S delivers the memory bandwidth necessary to obtain ultimate system level performance. Acer to Join DDR Race Acer Laboratories Inc also showed a core logic product that will support 266DDR. The move to DDR is still up in the air. Memory vendors are now producing graphic card parts but it will be up to Taiwan's core logic vendors to make it work with a CPU. Certainly a majority of the world's memory makers hope that Taiwan can deliver. An international posse of memory makers, from Korea's Samsung Electronics to Micron, are already sampling DDR devices at the 64-256Mb levels. All admit, though, that a three-month lag between samples and production will be the norm. Between the power of the Taiwanese and the world's memory makers, DDR seems almost a certainty. by David Baldwin