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To: Yousef who wrote (59673)	7/10/1998 2:12:00 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Yousef. Here's some "hard data" for you. On .25u K6 68mm2 K6-2 81mm2 Actually now that I sift through some data, the die size on the K6-2 might be less than 81mm2 now. Your explaination was very good, BTW. Jim

To: Yousef who wrote (59673)	7/10/1998 9:16:00 AM
From: Time Traveler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

From my note, P-II at 0.25um has a die size of 75mm^2 using 5 layers of metal. Just for reference, P-II at 0.35um is 202mm^2 using only 4 layers. So K6-2 with 81mm^2 and 5 layers of metal is bigger. Time Traveler

To: Yousef who wrote (59673)	7/10/1998 9:46:00 AM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 186894

Hi Yousef and ALL, Article...Intel's Xeon Opens Opportunities for Taiwan Vendors... July 10, 1998 (TAIPEI) -- Intel Corp.'s Pentium II Xeon processor for workstations and servers is opening business opportunities for Taiwan system and motherboard makers. UMAX Data Systems Inc. and Acer Inc., both of Taipei, unveiled Xeon -based workstations, and several vendors showed strong interest in making motherboards with the new processor. As profit margins of personal computers have become razor thin because of the sub-US$1,000 trend, Taiwan vendors are coming up with a new generation of workstations, server systems and motherboards equipped with the newly launched Xeon. They hope to tap the sprawling Internet market, where the return on investment is higher. UMAX Data Systems Inc. of Taipei delivered the Unix TekStation concurrently with Intel's launch of the Pentium II Xeon processor last week. "UMAX is aiming its products at the media publishing market, in which digital content creators demand high productivity, reliability and compatibility," said Frank Huang, chairman and CEO of UMAX. Having entered the workstation market only about one year ago, UMAX 's previous experience with Mac clones proved essential in making the move. Macintosh has lots in common with workstations: rigorous demands in computation speed and accuracy for graphics, image processing and 3-D animation, he said. UMAX also has a solid track record in graphic software development. For Intel to promote Xeon penetration, the motherboard sector is another front line of assault. The processor itself is a Slot-II cartridge running at up to 400/450 MHz with 512KB to 2MB high-speed cache memory, also known as L2. On the motherboard, a chip set offers a 100 MHz front-side bus, faster SDRAM and up to 2GB of memory accessibility. The multi-processor architecture has room for as many as eight processors. Xeon-based motherboards will generate more heat and electro-magnetic interference than previous modules. How to efficiently lower the ambient temperature and reduce interference, how to secure and balance the Xeon cartridge which is twice the size of a Pentium II cartridge on the board can challenge the ingenuity of engineers. Taiwan motherboard makers consider the ability to integrate Xeon on their products not only an indicator of technical proficiency, but also a jumping board into the workstation/server market. Asustech, Acer, FIC, UMAX, Soyo and Micro-star all are showing strong interests. But just how much production capacity to be earmarked for Xeon products depends on market responses. In the past, workstation/server system vendors make their own boards. Taiwan board makers have little experience with that. Once Xeon-motherboard know-how is secured, local motherboard/system makers aspire to solicit OEM contracts for workstations/servers. Xeon may also add fuel to the race between NT and UNIX operating systems when Xeon demonstrates more power with the anticipated launch of 440 NX chip set and NT 5.0 operating system by year end. Responding to strengths of Xeon, local distributors of UNIX-based workstation/server systems anticipate to offer new models in the near future. Eventually, price sells the product, said an analyst at Dyna Image Corp. of Taipei, a local distributor of Sun and IBM servers. Despite the desirable features and superb cost/performance ratio, he said the market will embrace Xeon only if the price is very attractive compared to existing systems. _____________________________________________________________________ Michael