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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maya who wrote (29645)	2/19/1998 11:23:00 AM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Cube does not have a PC Decoder division.... They have a PC Codec division. Intel Expects Quick Motherboard Integration of I740 3-D Chip: Analysts Predict 10-Percent Market Share By Year's End 02/18/98 Multimedia Week (c) 1998 Phillips Business Information, Inc. Intel Corp. [INTC] is debuting the I740 3-D graphics chip by leveraging the marketing expertise of add-in card makers close to the PC entertainment business, but the company plans to move the controller to the motherboard quickly and drive volume sales. Intel executives told Multimedia Week they expect motherboard vendors to begin offering configurations with the I740 by the end of the second quarter. Following conventional graphics-controller wisdom, that means Intel is likely to refuel the high-margin add-in portion of its 3-D business with another chip. Officials would not comment on the company's 3-D strategy beyond the I740 and would neither confirm nor deny that another chip is in the works. Mark Kirstein, an analyst with In-Stat, expects Intel to be among the four top graphics controller vendors this year, which would give the company at least 10-percent market share. He thinks Intel will move into the top three next year. Mike Feibus, a principal with Mercury Research, doesn't expect Intel to gain more than 15-percent share this year. He wouldn't offer a projection for 1999 because of so many variables in the market. Intel has gained a design win for the I740 with leading retail graphics board vendor Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. [DIMD], STB Systems Inc. [STB] and Real 3D, [LMI] the Lockheed Martin Corp. subsidiary Intel took a 20-percent stake in last month. (see MMW, Jan. 21) STB's first I740 board will be called the Lightspeed 740. Real 3D will ship a PCI and AGP version of the StarFighter add-in board at the end of the quarter with prices starting at $189. Other companies expected to introduce products using the chip, which supports 2X AGP, are Taiwan-base ASUStek Computer Inc., Leadtek and Number Nine Visual Systems Inc. [NINE]. Look for other manufacturers to announce products based on the I740 this week at Intel's annual developer forum in San Jose, Calif. Intel decided to support Direct3D and OpenGL rather than a proprietary API to address a broad market. The few analysts who have reviewed the chip gave it high marks for visual enhancement and image quality. Brian Ekiss, Intel graphics marketing manager, said the chip uses precise pixel interpolation and performs calculations on each pixel rather than at the polygon or triangle level. The chip employs direct memory execution to display very detailed texture maps. Intel executives said the I740 can decode MPEG-2 video at 24-frames-per-second on a PC with a software DVD decoder and a 266 MHz Pentium II processor. (Intel, 408/765-8080) DVD Connections C - Cube Microsystems Inc. [CUBE] is riding the I740 momentum to sell a daughter card that incorporates the component maker's ZiVA DVD decoder. The company designed the card, dubbed the Chelsea-I, to plug into a graphics board with the Intel chip without requiring additional engineering or glue logic from OEMs. Intel collaborated with C - Cube on the card's interface. The half-size card is available as a reference design now and comes with a ZiVA chip and 2 MB of DRAM. Clint Chao, senior director of marketing for C - Cube 's PC codec division, said OEMs can expect about a 50-percent costs savings compared to the price of a full-size card with a ZiVA chip. "We wanted to make DVD decoding in hardware a no-brainer," he said. C - Cube has gained design wins for the daughter card with Diamond, ASUSTek and Real 3D. Chao expects those companies to begin selling bundles of the I740 card and the Chelsea-I this spring. Later this year companies are likely to integrate the ZiVA and I740 onto a single card. Zoran Corp. [ZRAN] also is expected to sell a DVD decoder that fits into I740 boards. The company has yet to announce the product. ( C - Cube , 408/490-8000; Zoran, 408/919-4111)