I just read an interesting article from ABC News and I thought that with
this thread, it might be interesting to many of the folks who work
within the innards of the beasts. The article is copyrighted by Reuters,
as noted at the end of the article. FYI:
S A N T A C L A R A, Calif, April 6 —
National Semiconductor Co. says it will put an entire PC system
on a single chip by mid-1999, a move that should dramatically lower
the cost of PCs for manufacturers and consumers.
The single chip would replace the 12 or more separate chips
typically found in a PC today and expand the entry-level market for PCs.
National said its PC on a chip is being built around microprocessor
cores developed by Cyrix, the processor company it acquired in November.
National plans to make the chips at its new wafer fabrication facility
in Maine on 0.25-micron process technology that can be further scaled
down to 0.18 micron.
The plant has a capacity of 30,000 wafers a month, and National said
it can also draw on partners for additional capacity, including Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and International Business Machines
Corp..
National said responsibility for coordinating the first chip will go
to its design center in Herzlia, Israel, which has designed many of the
peripheral chips that surround the processor on a typical PC
motherboard.
National said it is defining versions of the chip for major PC and
information appliance makers. Versions are in the works for the desktop
market, where it will give consumers smaller, quieter machines, and the
notebook market, where the low power drain of the super-integrated chip
will extend battery life for portable users, the company said.
Copyright 1998 Reuters. All rights
reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.
Maybe we will just have to learn to live with all of the quirks of a
single chip board in the near future. Heaven help us.
Jean Bourvic
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