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To: Dan3 who wrote (54168)	9/19/2000 11:48:02 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

S3, Via Unleash A 'Twister' In Chipset Market (09/19/00, 11:25 p.m. ET) By Semiconductor Business News, Semiconductor Business News S3 Inc. and Via Technologies Inc. announced Tuesday that they have expanded their efforts in the integrated chipset market as they rolled out a product for use in notebook computers and other mobile products. Designed for mobile systems based on microprocessors from Intel Corp. (stock: INTC) and Via, the new "Twister" chipset combines Via's Apollo Pro133A chipset with S3's Savage4 graphics architecture on the same device. "This launch represents another successful marriage of Via and S3 (stock: SIII) graphics technologies," said Wen-Chi Chen, president and chief executive of Via, Taipei, Taiwan. "Twister's sophisticated power management for extended battery life, top quality DVD playback, and high-performance CPU interface provides real scalability and new levels of performance for manufacturers of value notebooks." The chip also represents the second product from the S3/Via duo, which is in the process of forming a joint graphics-chip venture. Last month, S3, Santa Clara, Calif., and Via submitted a revised business plan for Taiwan's approval of their joint venture after government officials rejected the initial proposal. Last week, the companies rolled out an integrated chipset for the low-cost desktop market. Hoping to expand its offering, the companies today rolled out Twister for the mobile market. Based on a Shared Memory Architecture, Twister integrates high-performance graphics features such as AGP4X, 32-bit true color rendering, DX6 texture compression, multi-texturing, DVD playback, among others. The companion South Bridge chipset offers AC-97 audio, MC-97 modem, Super I/O, and ATA-66/100 support. It also provides support for the HomePNA home networking and the Universal Serial Busstandards. With a 66/100/133-MHz frontside bus, the chip supports PC133 SDRAM, PC66/100 SDRAM, and Virtual Channel Memory. Twister costs $35 in 10,000-unit lots. The chip is a sampling, with production slated for the fourth quarter of 2000.