VIA Technologies Inc (
The world's number two chipset maker and Taiwan's top designer of central processing units (CPU), VIA, also said yesterday it plans to launch the new "Samuel II" 750 Megahertz (MHz) chip by the end of March, followed quickly by an 850 MHz version under the same name.
"Our follow up prototype to (Samuel II) is Ezra, ... This will be built using a .13 micron process and this will come up to around 950 (MHz), to one Gigahertz hopefully by the middle of the year," said Richard Brown, director of international marketing for VIA.
The company, which surprised market pundits and rivals alike last year with 260 percent revenue growth due to phenomenal gains in the world market for computer chipsets, said year 2000 revenue reached US$1 billion. This year, "even though we are in a market that's slowing to some extent, we're still looking to increase our revenues by over 50 percent," said Brown.
Although VIA estimates CPU sales will hit around 10 million chips this year, securities firm CLSA Ltd (
"I take a positive stand in China for their CPU," said Henry Wang (
Wang expects the company to launch its low-cost `Value PC' -- a computer sold to consumers for under US$500 -- in China this year. VIA has teamed up with 3Comm to develop the system, but a prototype is not yet available.
As part of the plan to develop the value PC, VIA created the Samuel I microchips. A computer's CPU is the most expensive part of a computer system. By aiming its chips at low cost, Internet-era electronic devices, the company believes sales will rise sharply in the coming year.
Trouble is, analysts expect Intel and AMD to further strengthen their positions in the market for low-cost computer CPUs. In this arena, VIA plans to make up for its smaller name in microprocessors by competing on price.
Based on the prices listed on their Web sites, Intel sells its 500 MHz Celeron processors at US$118 each in lots of 1,000 units. A comparable VIA product, the 700MHz Cyrix III sells for less than half the Intel price, at US$62 each in lots of 1,000 units.
Brown said the company's relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
VIA is a "fabless" chip firm, meaning the company does not manufacture its own chips. Instead, it depends on technological advances made by TSMC to smaller and smaller die sizes in chip making. VIA's Ezra chip is expected to be made in TSMC fabrication plants (fabs) with a ".15 process using a .13 transistor," according to Brown.
In related news, local media reported that Intel will license VIA, Silicon Integrated Systems Corp (
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