by Anton Shilov
12/20/2002 | 01:07 PM
Mainboard manufacturers and core-logic designers from Taiwan are currently very concerned about licensing the 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus as well as the next incarnation of the Hyper-Threading technology, namely, Hyper-Threading II. As DigiTimes reports, Intel reminded Taiwanese chipset makers about the necessity to license all the new versions of the Pentium 4 processor’s bus as well as other new technologies introduced by Intel, though, there is no information in regards the price of such license. Moreover, the Santa Clara, California-based company has not indicated their intention to sell such license to SiS, VIA Technologies (who does not want to buy anything, as they insist on the cross-licensing agreement between S3 Graphics that belongs to them and Intel Corporation) and ALi.
According to analysts, Intel’s market share on the field of core-logic products increased dramatically this year, achieving more than 70% of Pentium 4 destined solutions at present. Keeping in mind that SiS supplies approximately 20% of Pentium 4 chipsets now, there is only about 10% of the market for both VIA and ALi. Of course, the former holds the lion’s share of the remaining market and what is very important; their share is not likely to fall next year due to numerous reasons, whereas SiS has all the chances to partly loose their achievements for this year. <%BANNER[article]%>
In case Intel will ask indecent price for the 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus and the Hyper-Threading II technology license or will simply not offer such license at all or even withdraw the current license in the worst case, SiS’ market share will plummet. In case Intel will simply not allow SiS to make chipsets for 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus, the company will definitely launch its products that will be able to work with the forthcoming Pentium 4 processors, but will not declare the faster processor’s bus support, continuing to enjoy the sales in the lower-end market segment. As a result, VIA, who already sells the Pentium 4 meant core-logic products illegally, may receive additional orders on the 800MHz QPB and the Hyper-Threading II-supporting chipsets from its “anonymous” partners. Of course, there is a rather slight chance that Intel’s layers will succeed in restricting the import of illegal chipsets to certain countries, but even in this case VIA will definitely have enough market space. Obviously, Intel will continue to push their own core-logic next year and it is generally believed that their market share will raise again a number of points in 2003.
Mainboard makers are very interested in selling not expensive core-logic solutions from the Taiwanese chipset designers due to their low prices and high enough performance. Currently there are a lot of mainboards powered by SiS 648 chipsets that are bundled with all the fashionable features, though, does not cost a lot of money. Although VPSD products are not really popular, they definitely offer acceptable price : performance ratio.
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