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NVIDIA Plans to Make Desktop, Server, Mobile Chipsets for Intel Chips – CEO.

Category: Chipsets

by Anton Shilov

[ 12/17/2004 | 07:57 AM ]

Chief Executive Officer and President of NVIDIA Corp., Mr. Jen-Hsun Huang, revealed some details in regards the company’s future plans during his Fireside Chat with Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Edelstone. One of NVIDIA’s commitments, he said, was a broad portfolio of chipsets for Intel processors that includes products for servers, desktops and notebooks.

Broad Intel-supporting Chipset Family Coming

“The Intel platform will target the entry and high-volume servers. Notebooks are, of course, interesting to us as well and there is no reason why we cannot target every single segment…” said Mr. Huang.

The head of NVIDIA confirmed code-named C19 chipset for Intel Pentium 4 processors was sampling and that it would be mass-produced in February, 2005. He claimed the NVIDIA nForce4-series as well as the upcoming C19 core-logic products were targeted primarily on enthusiasts. According to NVIDIA’s CEO, the market of platform for hardware fans can be as large as 10-12-15 million units yearly and growing. He declined to comment on actual design wins among OEMs, but said the nForce4 and C19 chipsets had been designed for “tier-one”.

NVIDIA’s chief provided no details of the actual products and the strategy for getting into the market of mobile or server chipsets for Intel processors, given that enterprise users are very reluctant to change platform suppliers. None of NVIDIA execs currently discusses peculiarities of future core-logic products for Intel Corp.'s microprocessors.

In the past VIA Technologies desired to enter Intel Xeon server market, but failed, presumably due to the absence of Quad Pumped Bus license. Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. planned to make high-performance chipsets for Intel Pentium 4 workstations, but received very lukewarm welcome from system makers. While both chipset designers supply mobile chipsets, their market shares are pretty low. The most successful third-party mobile chipset developer has been ATI Technologies, who supplies low-power chips with comprehensive graphics integrated cores. Intel Corp. itself supplies the majority of chipsets for high-volume 1P or 2P servers based on Intel Pentium 4 or Xeon processors. 

Crush 19 to Bring SLI Enhancements to Intel Platforms

The Crush 19 chipset from NVIDIA is currently expected to support various Intel processors, including the most powerful and innovative in LGA775 form-factor with 1066MHz processor system bus as well as EM64T, XD and EIST technologies. Currently unofficial sources state that the only memory configuration to be supported will be dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz or 667MHz, but no dual-channel DDR memory. NVIDIA is also expected to incorporate special enhancements for Multi-GPU SLI configurations, which will allow installing two PCI Express x16 graphics slots and cards.

Given that due to external memory controller on Intel-based platforms, NVIDIA is expected to bring dual-chip core-logic for mainboards intended for Intel chips. The MCP04 I/O controller that is proclaimed to be paired with Crush 19 MCH is projected to inherit many features from the nForce4 core-logic, NVIDIA RAID, NVIDIA ActiveArmor firewall, NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA-300 and other important technologies, like USB 2.0, FireWire, 8-channel AC’97 audio and so on.

Currently it is unclear, how many versions of the Crush 19 chipset NVIDIA may offer. The Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA usually preps numerous flavours of its chipsets seeking to target various markets with various demands for functionality and pricing.

NVIDIA Rumoured to Make C19 at IBM

NVIDIA has already delivered samples of the C19 to its mainboard customers, and volume shipments will begin at the end of the first quarter, or early in the second quarter of 2005, according to certain sources.

Surprisingly, it is also reported that the next-generation nForce chipset for Intel Pentium 4 processors would be made at IBM. Previously the company outsourced production of its chipsets only to its foundry partner TSMC.

While an NVIDIA official declined to comment on the functionality and other peculiarities of the upcoming product for Intel processors, he confirmed that the announcement is targeted for Q1 2005.

VIA Technologies, SiS Corp. Set to Fight

The agreement with Intel Corp. can not only give a boost to NVIDIA’s revenues, but also put some pressure on sales of other chipset designers, primarily VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems, who have been concentrating on desktop chipsets, and partly ATI Technologies, who so far has been focusing on mobile core-logic products. Intel’s high-end chipset business may also face attack from NVIDIA.

According to reports, both VIA and SiS have been developing higher-end chipsets for Intel Pentium 4 processors, including those able to offer two PCI Express slots for SLI Multi-GPU technology. Neither SiS, nor VIA have so far officially supported SLI technology.