AMD had the top selling notebook in November
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AMD opens new lines of attack against Intel
with K6-2
Andrew MacLellan
Silicon Valley- Widening yet another front in its ongoing
battle against Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
has upgraded its K6 family of mobile microprocessors and
signed on the industry's leading notebook supplier as a
customer.
Toshiba Corp. has begun shipping its Satellite 2520
notebook PC in Japan with versions of the new Mobile
AMD-K6-2 processor, which promises industry-leading
speeds of up to 333 MHz, a faster 100-MHz frontside bus,
and AMD's vaunted 3DNow! multimedia instruction set.
The design win is a coup for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based
AMD, which has its foot in the door at two of the industry's
top notebook-PC vendors. Last fall, AMD begin shipping
its mobile chips in Compaq Computer Corp.'s Presario
1235, which closed out November as the retail industry's
best-selling laptop computer, according to PC Data Inc.,
Reston, Va.
"AMD has chipped away a little bit more at Intel's position
in the marketplace," said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst
with Insight 64, Saratoga, Calif. "They've got products with
Compaq, IBM, HP, Packard Bell-the only guys who aren't
shipping AMD are Dell and Gateway."
Since breaking into the mobile-computer sector last year,
AMD has quadrupled its share of the U.S. retail
notebook-PC market, moving from about 5% in June 1998
to more than 21% in November, according to PC Data.
"We fully intend to be right at the leading edge of pricing
and performance in mobile computing," said Dana Krelle,
vice president of marketing for AMD's Computation
Products Group. "The K6-2 is the next phase of that."
However, while analysts point to AMD's progress, they
note that the retail channel makes up less than 20% of the
total available mobile segment, giving AMD less than 5%
of the overall market. If AMD hopes to shake Intel's solid
foundation in the mobile space, they say, it will have to
expand its customer base beyond the retail universe to
include direct and corporate sales.
As the first indication that this may be happening, Toshiba
said its new notebook PC will target business users as well
as retail consumers. Even though the Satellite 2520 systems
are currently available only in Japan, the added corporate
exposure could introduce AMD to an important new
customer base, according to Stephen Baker, an analyst with
PC Data.
"Most of the products at the first-tier manufacturers have
been designed to be sold into retail channels, so anything
that AMD can get from an OEM that's targeted toward
corporate is a big win for them," Baker said.
Breaking into the crucial direct-sales channel could prove
an even bigger challenge, though, because AMD will have
to untie a knot of close partnerships between Intel and its
OEM customers.
"Direct is obviously a different issue," Baker said. "The
relationships the direct guys have with Intel are strong.
That's going to be the toughest market for AMD to crack.
"But they've spent most of the last year building legitimacy
and positioning themselves as a viable alternative, and
they're probably in a position now to make some inroads,"
he said.
The K6-2 devices feature a 1.8-V core and consumes less
than 8 W typical in a mobile platform, according to AMD.
And the chips will be available in optional ceramic BGAs
to help OEMs design so-called "thin and light" laptops.
The family also sports a superscalar MMX unit to boost the
performance of standard MMX-enabled applications.
Also available in 266- and 300-MHz speed grades, the
K6-2 processors are being positioned against Intel's
Pentium MMX and Celeron chips at the low end of the
market, which is rapidly moving from the sub-$2,000 level
toward the $1,000 mark. The 266-MHz K6-2 is priced at
$106, while the 300-MHz version is $187. By comparison,
Intel recently rolled out a 300-MHz mobile Pentium MMX
priced at $144.
At the higher end of the mobile market, the K6-2 and
AMD's upcoming Sharptooth processor with integrated
cache will do battle with Intel's Pentium II and Pentium
II-Dixon processors, according to AMD. The 333-MHz
K6-2 carries a $299 price tag.
Whether buyers will be swayed by AMD's enhanced
technology remains to be seen. But where AMD once
trailed Intel in most mobile segments-relying on price as its
primary selling point-the company is now better able to
parry each of Intel's strategic thrusts, according to Insight
64's Brookwood.
"As they cross swords, this is a much more competitive
picture than it used to be," he said. "And it gives AMD the
chance to sell a processor at over a hundred bucks."
Copyright ® 1999 CMP Media Inc.
techweb.com
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Looks like Toshiba will be AMD's first entrance into the coroporate world through a top Tier OEM.
Jeez, AMD based products sell VERY well, but AMD doesn't seem to know how to make the chips. Are they stupid or something? I don't know much about the manufacturing of chips, but shouldn't a "mask" problem be noticed before a million or two chips are made? Sure, they can't change it on the fly, but the problem won't be over until February, at least six weeks after it was figured out. |
