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Intel ties upcoming PC-on-a-chip to
Rambus
A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc.
Story posted 4:15 p.m. EST/1:15 p.m., PST, 5/28/99
By Mark Carroll and Will Wade
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Intel Corp. will take a crack at putting a
PC-on-a-chip late next year. The so-called Timna processor,
manufactured with 0.18-micron technology, includes a Pentium
II-class processor, a graphics controller, 128 kbytes of L2 cache
and -- the item that's raising the most eyebrows -- a Direct Rambus
memory controller.
If Intel follows through with its plan, Timna could drive Rambus
DRAMs into the mainstream and stake out a new territory in the
low-cost PC space. But motherboard makers here, already
struggling to integrate Direct Rambus into high-end Pentium III
designs this year, are worried about the hurdles involved in bringing
the new memories into volume, low-end systems.
At the same time, Timna is reigniting concerns about Intel's
extending its prowess beyond CPUs to stake claims in graphics and
memories.
With Timna, Intel is signaling that it is rethinking the pieces of the PC
architecture. The processor includes what has typically been
referred to as the north-bridge functions of a PC core-logic chip set.
As for the south-bridge components, "Intel is now talking about an
I/O hub when they talk about core logic, [because] for Timna
CPUs, all the core logic does is control I/O devices, mass-storage
devices and so on," said one motherboard R&D engineer here. (The
engineer, like many other sources here, requested anonymity in light
of the fact that the Timna product has not yet been formally
announced. Intel declined to comment for this report.)
"First, they control the CPU market. [Next,] the Timna is basically a
PC-on-a-chip," said the marketing manager for another Taiwanese
motherboard maker. "Now, they want control of the memory
market as well."
Some of Taiwan's motherboard makers think this increased
integration will not succeed in the market. "For specific OEM
applications, the Timna may be a good solution," said another R&D
engineer. "Historically though, the market has not had wide
acceptance of a set graphics function. Many consumers want the
ability to upgrade their video cards."
Indeed, Intel has a troubled history with integrated parts. Its efforts
to build in the 1980s all-in-one processors for the notebook market
was eventually abandoned, in part because the integrated chips
failed to keep up with rapidly changing features demanded by
OEMs.
"I think the Timna is an awesomely bad idea," said Peter
Glaskowsky, senior graphics analyst with MicroDesign Resources in
Sebastopol, Calif. Integrating so many functions, even at the
0.18-micron level, will mean large die size and high manufacturing
costs, he said, but aiming the part at the low-cost market means low
margins.
More important, the rapidly shifting graphics market demands
frequent updates, but it would be prohibitively expensive to revise
Timna because of the MPU component. "What you end up with is a
part that is too big, and is lacking in competitive features in both the
graphics accelerator and the processor cores, and those are all bad
things," said Glaskowsky. The only place such a device might
succeed, he said, is the very lowest end of the PC market. Even
with a mediocre graphics core, the performance gained by shrinking
line widths could make Timna competitive with other low-end parts.
PC makers here also said they fear the problems they are having
with Rambus on this year's high-performance desktops will now be
visited on their low-end systems as well. "The Timna raises the bar
as far as what it would take to have alternative technologies from
RDRAM," another engineer said. "If Intel's value-end PC only
supports RDRAM next year, that makes it awfully hard to fight."
Despite the board-design issues, "It makes sense for the Timna to
use RDRAM," said Dean McCarron, principal of market watcher
Mercury Research in Scottsdale, Ariz. Using integrated RDRAM in
the low-cost PC can lower overall memory costs, since it takes less
memory to deliver adequate performance.
"One of the reasons Intel went with RDRAM is that the memory
controller is only 30 pins per channel," said one major Taiwanese
motherboard manufacturer. "That's much easier to move onto the
CPU silicon than the standard SDRAM memory controller."
Another advantage is that you can increase bandwidth with a fairly
low rise in pin count. "With one channel at 30 pins, you get 1.6
Gbytes of bandwidth," said an engineer for another Taiwanese
motherboard maker. "With 60 pins you get 3.2 Gbytes and with 90
pins you get 5.4 Gbytes, and so on."
While Intel's schedule calls for rolling out Timna in the third quarter
of next year, McCarron said it could take an additional six months
for value-segment PC makers to begin the switch from SDRAMs to
Direct Rambus. Intel may have to delay Timna to early 2001, he
said.
"Ultimately, RDRAM will migrate down to this level of the market,"
McCarron added. "Intel's designing Rambus controllers into Timna
shows their assumption that RDRAM prices will migrate downward
as well."
As they watch Intel reveal portions of its road map, motherboard
makers are struggling to get their first PCs with Direct Rambus out
the door. The second iteration of the Camino chip set (the 820 B0)
- Intel's first core logic to support Rambus - is due to begin sampling
here at the end of May.
Taiwanese motherboard makers are having somewhat mixed results
with the development of RDRAM boards. The currently high price
of RDRAM is a main stumbling block, but some motherboard
makers are also having problems getting their RDRAM boards to
run.
"The current [A1 version of] Camino has problems," said one
Taiwanese engineer. "Now, it's hard for us to say if it's a core-logic
problem, a Rambus memory problem or our board design.
Hopefully the next iteration of Camino will work when we get it at
the end of May. It usually takes a couple of revisions to get a
working motherboard. RDRAM boards may take up to four
revisions, though."
Another problem with the Rambus transition is the high cost of
logic-analyzer equipment Rambus requires. In late April,
Hewlett-Packard Co. staged demos here of its HP16700A and
HP16702A logic analyzers geared to address testing issues with
Rambus. The systems cost about $230,000.
"The cost is just too high for our company," said one R&D engineer.
"We currently aren't using a logic analyzer for our RDRAM boards."
"We will let Intel solve the logic-flow problems," another engineer
said. "We will concentrate on EMI and signal-quality issues of the
board. For those problems, we have purchased a high-speed
oscilloscope.
"The cost of the RDRAM memory is 50% higher than SDRAM," he
went on. "When they have 128-Mbit parts, the cost premium will
come down to 30 to 40%."
Mark Ellsberry, vice president of marketing for Hyundai Electronics
America, said Timna will help drive RDRAM further down the
ladder and into the value-PC segment. "I think Intel is very
interested in getting Rambus into as many systems as possible," he
said. "Over the next few years, we will see a gradual change in
virtually all PCs, and SDRAM is going to be replaced by RDRAM.
PC133 will stay in low-end systems for the next one to two years
but will be forced out toward the end of 2000, when the price
premium for Rambus memory starts to shrink."
Meanwhile, it is not yet clear where Intel is sourcing the graphics
controller for Timna or exactly what is new about the Socket
370-S, which will first appear with the processor next year. "It's up
in the air which graphics core they will use," said analyst McCarron.
Intel recently launched the 752 graphics controller, which McCarron
described as a minor debug of its i740. "I would imagine the
graphics core [for Timna] will be something completely different," he
said.
Time is on Intel's side. Between now and the time Timna rolls, it
could launch two generations of graphics chips from its Chips and
Technologies unit or even strike a new partnership, McCarron said.
RDRAM operates in a highly serial mode, which works well with
burst access but not so well with random access. This is different
from much of the current graphics technology, so interfacing any
existing graphics core with Rambus would require significant work,
he added.
Glaskowsky said the core may use the same technology as Intel's
upcoming Capitola graphics device, another update of the i740 due
out later this year. Given the lengthy validation process for a
complex chip like Timna, he said the company will need to freeze
the design at least a year before the ship date and so has probably
already decided on a graphics strategy.
"The best the Timna could be is a next-generation Celeron core with
Capitola graphics," he said. "I give it a less than 50% chance that it
will ever be released."
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4:15 p.m. EST, 5/28/99, 05/28/99, 05/28/99, ID=news/19990528a1
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