ULi, a Taiwan-based core-logic designer, said Tuesday its newly released M1689 is an ideal solution for cost-effective systems based on AMD Sempron or AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors. The new chipset from the maker that has been absent from the mainstream market for years is a single-chip logic that brings all the latest technologies and, unlike rival’s offerings, is inexpensive enough to enable affordable systems with AMD’s latest chips inside.

Originally unveiled in late September 2003, the ULi M1689 only makes it to the market now, supporting AGP 8x, PCI, 2 ParallelATA-33/66/100 channels, 2 Serial ATA-150 ports with RAID, 10/100Mb/s Ethernet, USB 2.0, AC’97 audio and so on. The M1689 was originally expected to be available in mass quantities in Summer 2004, though, no leading mainboard makers have so far supplied platforms based on the core-logic in mass quantities.

“ULi’s M1689 is not only packed with cutting-edge features, but also offers flexibility and cost efficient to design, making M1689 the ideal choice widely acquired by global major ODM manufacturers for both mobile and desktop PCs. M1689 works perfectly with AMD Sempron processor to deliver superior system performance in handling large amount of digital media contents and graphics applications,” the chip designer said in its statement.

Previously NVIDIA Corp. used to be the only company to provide single-chip core-logic sets for AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron processors. However, NVIDIA primarily targets high-end of the market with its chips.

ULi’s M1689 supports processors for Socket 939 and Socket 754 infrastructures.