Hewlett-Packard continues to develop plans to transition its customers from systems based on its proprietary CPU to servers built around Intel's IA-64 processors. But the company is hedging its bets by continuing to develop PA-RISC, giving IT managers the option to stick with the technology through 2003 and beyond.
Buyers will get more choices in PCs, and Intel will get more paranoid, as x86 CPU competitors field an array of chips - some of them more capable than Intel's high-end offerings. "These guys are going to be fighting each other tooth and nail," said Nathan Brookwood, a principal analyst at Insight 64, a consultancy in California.
Further extending its product line beyond notebooks, Toshiba last week introduced servers that offer up to four 400MHz Pentium II Xeon processors. Toshiba unveiled the Magnia 7000 series enterprise-class server, which offers manageability, reliability, and serviceability features that tailor the system for applications such as data-warehousing, database, I-commerce, and high-volume business processing, the company said.
Continuing its efforts to provide a full range of PC solutions to the enterprise, Toshiba this week introduced servers that offer as many as four 400MHz Pentium II Xeon processors. Toshiba unveiled the Magnia 7000 series enterprise-class server. The server targets applications such as data warehousing, database, I-commerce, and high-volume business processing. The Magnia 7000 is designed to support future Intel processors. Intel currently offers 450MHz Xeon processors capable of two-way operation and is expected to introduce a four-way, 450MHz CPU early in 1999.
Samsung Electronics has announced that it has developed a 144Mb Direct Rambus DRAM and RIMM memory module. That keeps Samsung, the DRAM industry sales leader, ahead of the other Direct RDRAM suppliers, including Micron Technology, which recently received $US500 million from Intel to bring Direct RDRAM into production.
At Comdex in Las Vegas in November, Intel will let PC vendors show off systems, in public and behind closed doors, that use more than a dozen processors the company will introduce during the next six months.
Intel and its competitors are taking different routes to increase performance and cut costs, and a slew of new chips are on the way, technologists were told at the Microprocessor Forum this month. By this time next year, there may be six or seven x86 processor suppliers taking different approaches to graphics extensions for the MMX instruction set, according to Michael Slater, principal analyst at MicroDesign Resources, California, which sponsors the Forum.
IBM has introduced the first standard, high-volume chips built using its silicon germanium (SiGe) manufacturing process. The chips target applications such as cellular phones, pagers, and other wireless communications devices; they are intended to extend battery life; carry out multiple functions; and result in smaller, lighter, and less expensive hardware.
Advanced Micro Devices has announced it has licensed Rambus memory technology and will support Direct Rambus DRAM with core-logic chips for its forthcoming K7 processors. At the introduction of its K6, AMD offered AMD-branded core-logic chips, designed by VIA Technologies, to demonstrate AMD's commitment to the Socket 7 interface the K6 uses. Enough merchant core-logic chip suppliers support the Super 7 interface the K6 now uses that AMD no longer feels a need to market its own chip set, a company representative explained.
Stealing a beat on Intel at Comdex in November, three chip-set vendors will demonstrate Socket 7 and Slot 1 core logic that runs a PC system's bus as fast as 133MHz. Intel is not expected to reach that speed until next year.
Intel will continue to develop 32-bit processors well into the next century and has plans for a new micro-architecture to replace the Pentium II. On a parallel track, the vendor is already developing successors to Merced even though the IA-64 CPU is not due to ship until 2000. On the 64-bit side, Intel will follow Merced with the faster McKinley CPU, said Fred Pollack, director of measurement, architecture, and planning at Intel.
A service pack for Microsoft's Visual Studio 6.0 products is scheduled to be available by the end of the month, the company announced last week.
Enhanced Memory Systems has filed a patent infringement complaint against NEC Electronics and related affiliates alleging that NEC's Virtual Channel Memory DRAM design infringes a patent owned by Enhanced.
Intel has disclosed plans to form a consortium to develop a standard device driver interface to drive growth in standard, high-volume servers.
Intel is planning to introduce its fastest processor yet -- the 450MHz Pentium II Xeon -- the first week in October, and is already preparing products that can use that level of performance. Intel is working with Lucent on "away-from-the-office" business applications that use Lucent's Speech Application Platform.
