Updated More details of the Cyrix Jalapeno and NatSemi's strategy, have emerged after the company spoke at a VIA conference today. And now (Sunday the 7th), a reader has sent The Register a Japanese URL which demonstrates that Cyrix will produce not only stand-alone versions of the Cayenee and Jalapeno but a Media GX part based on the 6x86/MII core called the MediaPC. Here is the URL with thanks to Jonathan Hou's site and the Chiptech folk. That followed a presentation from motherboard manufacturer Chaintech, a company whose overheads said that the MII+366 would sample in Q2 of this year, with production in Q3. According to Chaintech, the MCs 355-450MHz parts will start appearing in volume in April of this year. Cyrix seems to have realised that its former strategy to go to the low end might be too limiting for its future growth. Overheads seen by The Register staff show that it wants to be the leading supplier of mainstream entry-level desktops, midrange and entry level portables, as well as emerging info-appliance markets. Price and performance is the name of the NatSemi-Cyrix game, according to the overheads. The latest objective for the Cyrix group at NatSemi on the Jalapeno front, include high frequencies, the reduction of memory latencies, an improvement in FP and 3D performance and a tiny die size, say the overheads. The technology will go to 0.18-microns, and have a deep pipeline with an 11 stage fetch to integer completion. Branch prediction will include a 1K entry, a four way BTB with seven bit history and prediction ROM, as well as a 16 entry return stack. That much is not new. But insufficient attention has been given to its two issue x.86 core, the fact it is memory-centric, and its 600+MHz deep pipeline. Samples will arrive before the end of the year, promises Cyrix. The die size will use 0.18-micron technology. The Register understands that VIA will support this technology, and certainly the Cyrix and VIA people were not particularly interested in talking to us. ®