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To: Jules B. Garfunkel who wrote (774)	11/2/1997 9:02:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 990

Jules, your welcome, but my small contribution posting a few articles from time to time is nothing compared to the thoughtful analysis you, Paul, and so many others provide me. Article....Intel buyout of Digital poses question to ARM's business.. infoworld.com ARM-Digital relationship in question after Intel buyout By Kristi Essick InfoWorld Electric Posted at 8:59 AM PT, Oct 31, 1997 Now that Intel plans to acquire Digital's semiconductor business, Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) is unclear what will happen to its existing licensing agreement with Digital, said an Acorn Computer Group official Friday. Digital licensed the ARM 32-bit RISC processor core in 1995, and has since built and marketed a range of StrongARM processors based on the technology. On Monday, Intel said it would acquire Digital's semiconductor business for $700 million. One of the stipulations of the contract allows Intel to obtain rights to manufacture and sell non-Alpha Digital semiconductor products, which includes the StrongARM line of semiconductors. (See "Settlement with Intel seen as good for Digital's core business.") "Implicated parties were not consulted in the Intel-Digital agreement," said Peter Bondar, director of engineering and technology at Acorn, a parent company that owns 43 percent of ARM and uses ARM chips in most of its products. ARM is not sure whether Intel, which it considers a major competitor, will continue building chips based on the ARM technology, Bondar said. StrongARM chips now in the works at Digital will be "delivered and concluded," but ARM is not sure what will happen after that, he said. Exactly how the licensing agreement between ARM and Digital will play itself out once Intel acquires the StrongARM technology is unclear. Acorn has based the reference design for its coNCord network computer on the Digital SA110 StrongARM processor. However, ARM believes that Intel will continue to manufacture StrongARM chips to fill a hole in its strategy -- mainly a lack of inexpensive chips for small information devices, Bondar said. "Intel is completely dominant in the desktop market," Bondar said, but is "badly represented" in the small-device arena, 80 percent of which is supplied by ARM, MIPS, and Hitachi processors. "Somebody was very clever at Intel" in terms of acquiring the StrongARM technology from Digital, Bondar said. Intel will realize how powerful the StrongARM architecture is and will exploit it, he said. At least one analyst agreed with this assessment, citing StrongARM as one of the most important aspects of Intel's interest in Digital's semiconductor business. Intel will be able to use the chip to get into the market for pagers, game consoles, and handheld devices, said Jim Garden, director of technical services at Technology Business Research earlier this week. While ARM is "slightly nervous" about the outcome of the Intel-Digital linkup, the company is confident it will mean continued production of the StrongARM chip, which in turn will boost the profiles of both ARM and Acorn in the market, Bondar said. Advanced RISC Machines Ltd., in London, can be contacted at arm.com. Digital Equipment Corp., in Maynard, Mass., is at digital.com. Intel Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif., is at intel.com. _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ hmmm, do I smell another business opportunity for Intel here. :-) This looks like some pretty significant news to me! Michael