icroprocessors for PCs have taken different paths from traditional desktop chips, primarily because of issues of space, power consumption, and heat. That may change later this year when Intel announces 233-MHz mobile chips based on its new Tillamook technology. The chips will closely match offerings in Intel's desktop division.
Intel and others are also looking at the viability of the low-end portable market. In May, for example, Intel introduced a 133-MHz Pentium processor with MMX multimedia extensions, several months after announcing its 150-MHz and 166-MHz Pentiums with MMX. "Inte
l sees that not every mobile user needs a workstation," says Dean McCarron, an analyst at Mercury Research in Scottsdale, Ariz.
While that would seem to defy Intel's stated goal of offering better performance at similar prices, the company has grudgingly acknowledged the market for solid, low-end portables.
That's also the target market of Centaur Technology Inc., a startup in Austin, Texas, and a subsidiary of Integrated Device Technology Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif. "There's an under-served market at the low end of both the desktop and mobile computing areas," says Glenn Henry, Centaur's president, who's also a veteran of chip units at IBM and Silicon Graphics and a former VP at Dell Computer.
Centaur's line of chips, due in the third quarter, is expected to underprice standard Intel chips by as much as 50%. Because Centaur's chips will use much less power than current Intel units, the company believes it will do well in the mobile market, particularly in systems priced under $2,000.
Intel be
lieves the high end of the business is also growing. For that market, it now offers companies that incorporate its chips into finished computers a modular mobile module that delivers a processor, graphics, and part of the chipset technologies on a single board. This board can be updated easily for new Intel technologies. The module is used by Gateway 2000 in its newest Gateway Solo 9100 notebook.
Also for high-end notebooks, Intel plans to introduce 200-MHz and 233-MHz versions of a Pentium processor with MMX, code-named Tillamook, in the second half of the year. Intel will manufacture the chips using a 0.25-micron technology that will result in lower power consumption and heat problems, a must for notebook technology. Intel has spent millions perfecting this thin-micron technology, which produces silicon wafers 1/400th the thickness of a human hair.
In the first half of next year, expect PC vendors to deliver mobile systems powered by Intel's Tillamook technology.
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icroprocessors for PCs have taken different paths from traditional desktop chips, primarily because of issues of space, power consumption, and heat. That may change later this year when Intel announces 233-MHz mobile chips based on its new Tillamook technology. The chips will closely match offerings in Intel's desktop division.
