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Intel%squots Long-Term Chip Strategy Comes Into Focus

Company to bring 100-MHz system bus to low-end Celeron chips, ties up competition in web of patents.

By Terho Uimonen, PCWorld   

Whitney is scheduled for release some time in the first quarter of 1999, when iterations of the Celeron chip family will reach clock speeds of over 300 MHz, the sources added. Intel has said that the next version of the Celeron, code-named Mendocino, will run at 300 MHz and include on-chip Level 2 cache memory. Mendocino is scheduled for introduction in this year%squots fourth quarter.

Intel officials yesterday at the Taiwan launch of the Celeron and new 350-MHz and 400-MHz Pentium II processors declined to comment on any unannounced products, but did admit that the company is looking at adding new features to the Celeron platform in the future.

Accompanying the launch of the new processors were also two new chip sets, the 440BX AGPset that brings the 100-MHz P6 system bus to the Pentium II platform, as well as the 440EX AGPset, a 66-MHz bus chip set designed for Celeron-based low-end PCs.

In related news, Intel officials reiterated yesterday that the company has no plans to open up the Slot 1 architecture, which houses both Pentium II and Celeron processors, to allow third-party vendors to offer compatible chip sets.

%dquotOur position has not changed,%dquot said Stanley Huang, Intel%squots Asia-Pacific director of product marketing and business management.

Undeterred by lingering questions about whether it is technically possible to develop Slot 1 chip sets without infringing on Intel%squots vast patent portfolio, at least two vendors have already announced their intention to market such products.

Intel%squots position, meanwhile, is drawing criticism from industry observers. In an open letter addressed to Intel President and CEO-designate Craig Barrett, a well-known chip-industry analyst earlier this month urged the company to open up Slot 1 to competition.

%dquotIntel%squots current proprietary stance is doing unnecessary damage to what remains of the third-party chip set industry--and it has every appearance of being designed to reduce competition and raise prices for system-logic chip sets,%dquot wrote Michael Slater, principal analyst at Microdesign Resources and editorial director of the Microprocessor Report.

Jeff Tsao at Computerworld/Infoworld Taiwan contributed to this story.