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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Engel who wrote (69675)	12/9/1998 11:04:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

Intel Investors - More Info on Intel's Pentium License to DOE for Rad Hard Space/Defense applications. Note the "comment" that Intel may receive $4.25 for EVERY P6 chip set shipped by VIA Technologies. I'd say the margins on that money ought to be pretty good - like 99.5% (Intel will have to pay somebody to count the receipts !). Paul {========================} eet.com Intel reaches for new Pentium galaxies By Margaret Quan EE Times (12/09/98, 4:28 p.m. EDT) SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In a display of good corporate citizenship that may also reflect a desire to crack the defense market, Intel Corp. has granted a royalty-free Pentium license to the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories for development of a radiation-hardened version of the processor for use in satellites, space vehicles and defense systems. At a press conference at Intel's Santa Clara headquarters, Intel president and chief executive officer Craig Barrett quipped that it is part of Intel's plan for "intergalactic expansion." Barrett said Intel had three primary motives for granting Sandia a free license to the Pentium: a patriotic allegiance to U.S. interests, a long working relationship with the DOE on similar projects and a desire to move technology forward in the low-volume markets for space, satellite and defense systems. The DOE expects to have prototypes rad-hard chips available three years from the project's beginning, with production to begin one year later. The Department of Energy, the Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and the National Reconnaissance Office will spend $64 million over fours years on the project, which will leverage Intel's $1 billion investment in chip design, processor enhancement and processing technology for the Pentium. In return, the DOE will invest in long-term development that will advance existing computing technology by three to six orders of magnitude, according to Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson. The long-term development work is expected to lead to such advancements as a teraflops computer-on-a-chip and a spacecraft-on-a-chip. Some analysts suggested that Intel's move marks an attempt to capture share of a market in which Intel has little presence to date: that for defense, satellite and space systems. Energy secretary Richardson said at the conference that licensing of the Pentium to the government will advance computing power in space and defense applications tenfold over existing technology, while saving U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in microprocessor design costs. NASA administrator Daniel Goldin said the Pentium will help NASA "plumb the depths of the oceans of [Jupiter moon] Europa, take samples from Mars and explore the outer limits of our own solar system." Sandia, DOE's lead fab for microelectronics research, will conduct the rad-hard development. In addition to making the chip resistant to ionizing radiation, which can alter a circuit's operations, the goal will be to reduce the Pentium's power consumption tenfold. The rad- hard version of the Pentium will be pin-for-pin compatible with the commercial version and will run all Pentium software. Development will be carried out in Sandia's Microelectronics Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M. The chip will be manufactured in 0.35-micron feature size by a group of companies that specialize in rad-hard ICs for space and defense. The rad-hard chips will be available to U.S. government agencies and U.S. industries that require radiation-hardened parts. They will be manufactured exclusively in the United States and will be subject to strict export controls. The redesign effort will involve several government agencies that are expected to use increased computing power for a variety of applications. The DOE, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, Calif.), the Air Force Research Laboratory (headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, Ohio), and the National Reconnaissance Office are the initial agencies with projects identified. Applications will include earth satellites, space probes and missile defense. Intel's relationship with the DOE extends back nearly 20 years, to 1980. The two have worked on 60 joint projects over that time, including the completion of the first teraflops computer. In the 1980s, Intel granted Sandia the rights to the 8085 and 8051 microcontrollers under arrangements similar to the Pentium agreement. While Intel made much of its corporate citizenship at the press conference, some analysts said the move looks like a long-term strategy to seed the defense, space and satellite market with Intel processors. The gesture also gives Intel the appearance of a benevolent benefactor at a time when it faces a Federal Trade Commission monopoly investigation. Intel has clashed with Taiwanese manufacturers seeking to design Pentium II chip sets. Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc. recently signed a licensing agreement for the P6 bus microarchitecture, and other chip-set companies are said to be talking with Intel. According to one analyst, the royalty payments amount to $4.25 per chip set-nearly the sum of any profit margin a third-party core-logic company might expect.