Intel Corp, the biggest maker of computer chips, will sharpen its focus and roll out smaller, faster models of its Pentium 4 processor as an industrywide slump continues, Chief Executive Craig Barrett said.
"There are a number of turbulent factors going on in the industry today, everything from the general economy to the dotcom meltdown," Barrett said at a meeting broadcast over the Internet.
Intel two weeks ago said fourth-quarter sales will be US$6.2 billion to US$6.8 billion, the same target the company has set for three straight periods. Barrett didn't change that forecast today.
The chipmaker's revenue has slipped this year as slack economic growth pushed customers to trim orders, and consumer confidence dropped further after terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.
The current slump will prove twice as deep as the decline of 1985, Barrett said. Most analysts expect worldwide chip sales to fall 25 percent to 30 percent this year.
Intel this year stopped selling consumer products such as digital cameras and some Internet services and networking gear, which Barrett today said were "distracting." Barrett tried to reassure investors, comparing the current slump to lulls after the industrial revolution and the invention of the automobile. After periods of "irrational exuberance" came periods of "reality" and then growth again, he said.
Barrett said he's optimistic that the PC-chip unit can grow more than 10 percent a year going forward. Overall, he still sees the company's sales rising 15 percent to 20 percent a year.
Intel highlighted recent suc-cesses from its latest Pentium 4 processor for personal computers. The chipmaker earlier this month started shipping more Pentium 4s than older Pentium IIIs.
About 42 percent to 49 percent of the PCs sold in Best Buy Co's stores in October used the Pentium 4, and more than 80 percent of those sold by Gateway Inc this month use the chip, Intel Executive Vice President Paul Otellini said.
Intel expects that late this quarter it will start shipping models of the Pentium 4 based on a new manufacturing method that prints thinner, 0.13 micron circuits. PCs using these chips and faster, so-called double data-rate memory will be available "very early" next year, Otellini said.
Santa Clara, California-based Intel is further shrinking the circuits in its chips. The company is now moving to the tiny, 0.13 micron wires and will shift to 0.09 micron in 2003.
"Ultimately, you have to measure us by our results, getting new products out, getting new technology out," Barrett said.
The chipmaker wants to start selling 3 gigahertz Pentium 4s next year and plans a new Celeron chip for inexpensive PCs based on the Pentium 4 design for the middle of 2002, Otellini said.
Intel will add a Pentium 4 for laptops in the first quarter, he said. The chipmaker will also bolster its lineup for servers that dish up Web pages, with fancier Xeon and Itanium processors next year, he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS