X-bit labs

ALi Plans a Return into the Chipset Market?

Category: Chipsets

by Anton Shilov

[ 09/30/2003 | 03:29 PM ]

ALi Corporation, known under ULi name and formerly known as Acer Laboratories, is reportedly planning to re-enter the market of core-logic sets next year. The company has not been presented widely in the chipset market for more than two years already and its possible return to the primary business is still under question mark, as there were a number of attempts in the past, all of them unfortunate. However, with the recent rebound of the whole PC industry there will be some market space for ALi/ULi next year and we may see a well-known company back.

According to VR-Zone web-site, ALi prepares chipsets for both AMD Athlon 64 and Intel Pentium 4/Prescott processors next year supporting latest PCI Express interconnection technologies as well as DDR-II 400, 533 and possibly even 667MHz for Intel CPUs. The company will be a bit cautions in the beginning and there will be only two solutions for Intel and two for AMD platform. This is quite logical approach for the company that has been absent from the market virtually for years, its partners among mainboard makers adopted chipsets from competitors and certainly will not return to ALi at once.

In the Q2 2004 ALi will start mass production of its M1685 North Bridge for the next-generation of Intel Pentium 4, Prescott and Pentium M processors. Due to compatibility with Intel Pentium M processors I believe that this chipset will be mostly intended for mobile applications in 2004, rather than for desktop solutions. ALi M1685 will support DDR and DDR-II SDRAM memory at 400, 533 and 667MHz. Besides, the logic will provide 1 x16 PCI Express port for graphics and 2 x1 PCI Express slots for other add-in cards or some on-board peripherals, such as LAN controller. This one will use HyperTransport links to connect to I/O controllers.

The ALi M1691 North Bridge coming out in the third quarter next year will be considerably faster than the previously mentioned M1685. It will feature dual-channel DDR and DDR-II memory and will also be compatible with future processors from Intel, such as Prescott and Pentium M (probably, the Dothan). Since the core-logic connects to the South Bridge using PCI Express x1, only 1 x1 port for add-in cards will be provided, complementing x16 intended for graphics cards. It is expected that ALi M1691 will boast with Azalia audio support.

For AMD Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX processors ALi will offer M1689 and M1697 solutions. The former is a single-chip core logic we described in details on the 22^nd of September, while the latter is something more progressive coming out in the second quarter, 2004. The M1697 will be yet-another single-chip core-logic for AMD64 platform supporting very rich set of features, including 1 x16 PCI Express port, 4 x1 PCI Express ports, Gigabit Ethernet MAC, 4 Serial ATA-150 ports with RAID support, UAA audio and so on. Keep an eye on this one; it has all chances to become massive!

As ALi choose to go single-chip solutions for its products intended for AMD Athlon 64 platforms, all its South Bridges, or I/O controllers, will be made mostly for Intel Pentium 4 chipsets. For lower-cost applications – such as based on M1685, for example – the company will continue to offer its ALi M1563 supporting 2 Parallel ATA-66/100/133 ports, up to 6 USB 2.0 ports, AC’97 audio, up to 6 PCI slots, Memory Stick interface, 10/100 Mb/s Fast Ethernet, HomePNA 1.0/2.0 MAC layer and so on. For advanced products the company will provide its M1565 controller that adds 4 x1 PCI Express ports, 8 USB 2.0 ports, 4 Serial ATA-150 ports and UAA audio to the list of capabilities. Specifically for the powerful M1691 platforms ALi will roll-out the M1575 in Q2 2004 with Gigabit Ethernet MAC.

ALi’s roadmap looks as a very promising one, but ALi’s plans have always been bright on paper, while the company’s actual business results have been more than moderate. Hopefully, as a part of collaboration with UMC there will be some new tendencies in the execution of ALi…