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SIS and Acer to introduce chipsets for Intel Pentium4

Silicon Integrated Systems Co (SIS, 矽統科技) and Acer Laboratories Inc (揚智科技), two of Taiwan's largest computer chip designers, said they will introduce chipsets to work with Intel Corp's Pentium4, a move analysts say will likely lower the price of PCs using the chipmaker's fastest processor.

SIS and Acer Labs will make some of the first chipsets to connect the Pentium4 with memory chips cheaper than those for which the processor was originally designed. Chipsets enable a processor to work with other parts of a computer.

Winning the backing of Taiwan makers, which account for half of the world's chipset market, may boost sales of Intel processors by cutting the cost of PCs. Intel signed licenses with SIS and Acer Labs, allowing them to make chipsets linking the Pentium4 with so-called double data rate, or DDR, memory chips.

"The Pentium4 has had a difficult first year," said Bert McComas, an analyst with InQuest Market Research. "Perhaps the most confusing aspect of Intel's strategy has been the absence of a mainstream DDR platform." SIS, Acer Labs and Taiwanese rival VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子) account for about half of all chipset sales with Intel holding the rest. Intel Pentium4 chipsets operate in tandem with more expensive memory chips based on technology from Rambus Inc, which some analysts say has kept PC prices too high.

"When I visited Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, they were saying `I'm waiting for your product,"' Shing Wong, an SIS vice president, said in an interview.
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