More Mobile-Chip Options

Every now and then, notebook manufacturers decide to take a chance on non-Intel processors. In today's Windows market, that means one of two chips: AMD's K6 family or Cyrix's MediaGX. AMD and Cyrix are expected to announce their mobile processors by the end of the year. Industry analysts anticipate that the decreasing entry-level prices on desktop PCs will soon be found on portable machines, meaning that end users will have more options for low-cost units.

AMD is expected to start sampling a low-voltage 266-MHz version of the K6 that could mark its reentry into the portable market. The next-generation 300-MHz K6 is the first processor that the company has designed and built using 0.25-micron-process technology, much like the 200- and 233-MHz Tillamook chips that Intel unveiled in September.

The AMD chip will ship in both pin-grid array (PGA) and ball-grid array (BGA) packaging. The former will target the existing Socket 7 market. The BGA-based mobile K6 will aim at a niche market for small form factors. AMD is trying to convince the top 10 OEMs to jump on the K6 bandwagon. A few notebook manufacturers in Taiwan have tested AMD's mobile K6 chip and found its performance impressive.

Clevo demonstrated an entry-level notebook that supports both Intel's Mobile Module (MMO) and Socket 7 architectures at the fall Comdex. It sells for $1300 to $1500, depending on features. Another maker, w hich asked not to be named, says it plans to introduce K6-based notebooks, starting at a price range from $2000 to $2500.

Some Taiwanese companies are reluctant to use the AMD technology. Acer stresses that it will not use any Intel alternatives before the end of the first quarter in 1998. However, it has been testing the mobile K6 in its notebook series for some time. In spite of the fact that the mobile K6 achieves remarkable performance and heat dissipation, Acer's Brian Chong says, "AMD's biggest problem is convincing OEMs that it is worthwhile using an AMD device as opposed to staying with Intel. It is important for us to know if they are going to have second- and third-generation products."

At the low end, Cyrix, which has been acquired by National Semiconductor, is getting a lot of attention for its MediaGX chips. The company's 0.35-micron MediaGXi and MediaGXm mobile chips integrate CPUs, core logic, VGA graphics, and 16-bit stereo sound in a two-chip solution with a starting price below $ 100. The new MediaGXm supports multimedia extensions (MMX) and synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), and it includes a 16-KB instruction and data cache.

In addition to 166- and 180-MHz versions, Cyrix is expected to unveil an MMX-enhanced MediaGX processor running at 233 MHz, with a power consumption that may be as low as 5 W before year's end, according to a Cyrix executive for Asia-Pacific.

Taiwanese makers are less worried about using Intel alternatives for the entry-level segment, because Intel is not really addressing that end of the market. By using the MediaGX solution, portable makers could bring notebook prices closer to $1500 than today's low end of $2000, Cyrix officials claim.

On the high end, Digital Semiconductor is working on a mobile Alpha chip running at speeds well over 400 MHz. This is slated for introduction early next year. In a race to steal thunder from Intel, a Digital official said that the mobile Alpha chip could run at clock speeds as high as 533 MHz by the second quarter of n ext year, when Intel's forthcoming mobile Deschutes version of the Pentium II is scheduled to reach 300 MHz.

Portable vendors in Taiwan are skeptical of Alpha's performance on an x86 platform. While native Alpha NT Office is still nowhere to be seen, it takes a special software-conversion technology, the Digital FX!32, to let Alpha systems run 32-bit x86 Windows and NT applications as fast as they run on comparable x86 systems.

And even if Digital could overcome that hurdle, Acer's Chong notes that it is questionable if Digital could price Alpha mobile chips sufficiently low. "The perception is that the price for a non-Intel notebook must be low," he says.

Another high-performance mobile solution is the PA-RISC laptop. In October, RDI, a professional workstation-class portable vendor in the U.S., introduced two Unix-based models priced at $12,000.

RDI's Precisionbook, comparable to an HP-UX Visualize B-class workstation, is powered by a 132- or 160-MHz SPARC processor. Another version, which runs at 167 or 200 MHz, is also available. Both models incorporate 14.1-inch screens.

RDI claims that these units are priced only 30 percent to 50 percent higher than comparable workstations, making these notebooks truly competitive with HP's and Sun's desktop equivalents. Wintel notebooks usually sell for 100 percent more than their equivalent PCs.