ELECTRONICS BRIEFS

By Staff -- Purchasing, 8/24/2000

Intel to support PC 133

Good news for computer industry buyers. Intel says it will produce a PC 133 synchronous DRAM chipset for its Pentium 4 microprocessor. The move will help PC manufacturers reduce the cost of Pentium 4 systems because Rambus solutions are more costly than synchronous. Intel says it is also considering supporting double data rate (DDR) architecture, but has made no decision on it yet.

More flash capacity added

AMD and Fujitsu have broken ground for a new $1.5 billion "megafab" in Japan that will manufacture flash memory devices. The new fab is expected to be completed in the second half of 2001. The fab will produce 7,500 eight-inch wafers per week when fully equipped. Bit shipments of flash memory are growing at 100% compound annual growth rate driven by telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics equipment.

Intel postpones Itanium

Intel has delayed shipment of its first 64-bit microprocessors until the fourth quarter. The chip had been expected to ship in Q3. The company says it needs to do more testing of the chip to make sure there aren't any bugs. Intel will ship small quantities of the chip in the fourth quarter, but production volumes won't start until the first half of 2001. The chip is aimed at servers.