PC alliance bids to loosen Intel hold on chip design

Intel's top three customers are joining forces to create a faster PC interface, challenging the chip giant's hold on the design.

Frustrated at being subservient to Intel's control of processor technology, Compaq, Hewlett Packard and IBM are developing an improved PCI specification.

Called Project One, the joint venture will create a faster PCI interface aimed at the server market. Intel's PCI bus only operates at 66MHz with a transfer rate of 132Mbps.

According to US reports, the three manufacturers will produce their own specification that will offer rates of 1Gbps in the first half of next year, to take advantage of higher speed processors.

The partners claimed that with current advances in processor speeds, Rambus technology and other innovations, Project One will deliver a faster speed for servers.

The prime sector for the venture is NT servers. The motivation for the move was understood to be the manufacturers' desire to differentiate their products from commodity vendors that take motherboards from Intel.

It is unlikely that prices will be higher than those of Intel but performance should be sufficiently superior to give the machines the advantage.

A source at Intel, who declined to be named, said it was interesting that Dell had not joined the alliance.

There was also the issue of the speed of data transfer between the processor and peripherals. It is also expected that there will be backward compatibility.

An announcement on the venture is not expected before November, with availability in early 1999 - in time to exploit the Merced processor delay.

To a large extent, Intel has been left out in the cold by the trio, although it is expected to agree to the PCI bus spec.