National Semiconductor, as revealed earlier today, duly rolled out its information appliance processor, dubbed the Geode. The integrated processor will be produced in a .25 micron, 270 square mm die size initially, but later in the year will move to a .18 micron, 140 mm die size. Yomtov Sidi, NatSemi's director of the project based in Tel Aviv, said that "millions" of the processors will be produced by the end of the year, but declined to give any price for the product. He said future plans for the Geode family will include MPEG4, enhanced Gfx, Lan functionality, XDSL and handwriting recognition. Sidi said that although the first family member supported USB, NatSemi has a PCI FireWire solution if necessary. The ex-Cyrix team which worked on the 64-bit x86 core will continue to work on optimising it, he said. The first Geode will run at 266MHz but Sidi claimed that processor speed was not an issue in the design. The chips will be manufactured at the Portland fab, and Sidi said his company was still in discussions about a possible fab partner. ®