VIA Technologies Inc (
The chip is aimed at the market for low-power processors for notebook computers, as well as for the sub-US$500 PC market.
In addition, VIA yesterday also unveiled its first chipset designed to work with Intel's Pentium 4 microprocessor.
The release of the chipset was much anticipated because of VIA's ongoing licensing battle with Intel. In order to make a chipset that works with the Pentium 4, VIA must license the technology from Intel.
Competitors Acer Laboratories Inc (揚智科技) and Silicon Integrated Systems Corp (矽統科技) have won licenses from Intel, leaving VIA as Taiwan's sole major chipset maker without an agreement.
VIA says that the lack of a license shouldn't be a problem because of its recent purchase of US-based S3, a graphics chip designer. S3 has a number of licensing agreements with Intel, and VIA claims those agreements allow it to make Intel-compatible products.
"The legal team assures me there will be no problems with Intel," said Chen Wen-chi (陳文琦), CEO of VIA Technologies, yesterday.
The new chipset is designed for double data rate memory chips.
VIA Technologies plans to have its new 800MHz chip in full production by the end of the month, and the company said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) will help it reach that goal.
"VIA has been pushing TSMC on new technology starting from the 0.18 [micron process] to 0.15 and 0.13 microns," said Tseng Fan-cheng (曾繁城), president of TSMC.
Tseng said the company's two 8-inch fabs -- fab 4 and fab 6 -- are already using the 0.13 micron process. Two of its 12-inch wafer fabs are also running 0.13 micron lines.
VIA yesterday also answered questions surrounding a new graphics chipset developed by Nvidia, and VIA's number one customer for chipsets, Advanced Micro Devices.
"We don't feel like we were threatened by Nvidia's new chip-set," said Richard Brown, marketing director at VIA Technologies.
"They'll end up cannibalizing their own sales rather than challenging VIA."
Brown also noted that Nvidia hopes to create a new market with its graphics chipset, while VIA products serve the current market.
VIA, which surprised the industry with 260 percent revenue growth to US$1 billion last year due to phenomenal inroads into the chipset market, estimated earlier that sales of its microprocessors this year will hit around 10 million units.
A February report from Credit Lyonnais Securities (Asia) Ltd estimated sales for the IC design company could run as high 20 million units, in consideration of the fact that VIA's own forecasts are usually on the conservative side.
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