Intel brings forward P4 motherboard

Chip giant Intel has brought forward the release of its DDR-compatible Pentium 4 motherboard, codenamed Brookdale, to the third quarter of this year.

Chip giant Intel has brought forward the release of its DDR-compatible Pentium 4 motherboard, codenamed Brookdale, to the third quarter of this year.

The eagerly awaited chipset was due for release in March 2002 but the revised schedule could see it available to original equipment manufacturers by October. The motherboard is also expected to add support for PC-133 SDRam.

Although adding lower-cost DDR and PC133 SDRam compatibility to the Pentium 4 chipset will make it appeal to mainstream markets, Intel emphasised that the more expensive Rambus RDRam is its preferred high-performance memory technology.

Despite the manufacturer's decision to embrace memory types other than Rambus and bring forward the release date for Brookdale, it is significantly behind main rival AMD.

Volume shipments of AMD's DDR-based Athlon motherboards are expected to begin this quarter.

Separately, Intel DRam rivals Samsung, Infineon, and Micron have announced the development of new low power-consuming memories for next-generation mobile systems and cellular handsets.

The 32Mb memory, dubbed Mbit, uses a low-power storage cell based on a single transistor and one capacitor, similar to DRam. Power usage will vary between 2.5 and 3.3 volts. Pricing is not yet available for any of the products.