Chip giants unwrap blueprint for the future
Chip giants Intel and AMD descended on New York last week to address their respective analyst and shareholder communities.
Chip giants Intel and AMD descended on New York last week to address their respective analyst and shareholder communities.
Intel announced plans to combine its architecture business with its microprocessor products group, as part of a $100m (£64.5m) campaign to target web integrators, ebusinesses and internet service providers.
Rival AMD unveiled Duron, the new name for the company's family of processors aimed at the low-end business and home market. Duron is based on Athlon and features full-speed, on-chip Layer 2 cache memory, a 200MHz front-side system bus and 3DNow technology. AMD plans to begin shipping Duron processors in June.
Intel's reorganisation involves developing microprocessors, motherboards, chipsets and systems, while related software at the platform level will be combined into platform-focused business operations. These will be targeted at enterprise servers and workstations, as well as the desktop and mobile markets. The research laboratories of the two groups will also be integrated.
Intel, long the industry leader, has been hurt by chip shortages because of higher-than-expected demand, and sources close to the vendor predict this will continue until the middle of this year. AMD is enjoying unprecedented success and has seen its stock rise from about $17 last October to around $80.
But Andy Bryant, chief financial officer at Intel, said increased production capacity in the second half of this year should alleviate the chip shortages.
The vendor has also been hurt by its diversification strategy in the past 18 months.
The chip giant has also spent billions of dollars acquiring 17 companies, has formed a business division, increased its wireless efforts and watched its investment group grow to be worth $11bn.
Nathan Brookwood, principal at researcher Insight 64, said: "Intel today is far more complicated to run. Five years ago, it was developing one chip and proliferating it downward."
But industry analysts have warned that AMD's success could lead to similar shortages that are currently plaguing Intel.