VIA unveils chipset roadmap, claims Camino late

A senior executive at chipset company VIA outlined today his company's roadmap for the rest of the year. Dean Hays, director of marketing at Via, said: "One of the things Intel does is to abandon functions [from] its chipsets when it wants to move on. We support functions and so it's a just a simple choice between CPUs." He said that its ProMedia chipset would be a cost-effective alternative for the Socket 370 platform, building on features on its Pro Plus and MVP4 feature sets. It would offer a high level of integration, including a 2D/3D graphics engine and use the VT82C686A South Bridge design. VIA will introduce the product in March and will go into mass production in Q2, Hays said. VIA is also designing chipsets for the 133MHz bus. It would compete against Intel on performance and integrated chipsets and again would introduce product in Q2. The company will also have a six month lead over Intel's Camino chipsets with its Pro133A and Pro133 designs, he claimed. "We'll be six months ahead of Intel," he said. "The rumours are Camino has slipped." He said its 1394 Firewire chipset, VIAFire VT6305 is now available and said: "Our intention is to integrate this into the chipset. We originally thought it belonged on the North Bus but now we're thinking of it more as South Bridge chipset," he said. VIA will also issue its own design guidelines for its chipsets, he said. "Intel's approach to design guidelines is to say: 'Do it this way, don't change it, trust us'. Our design guides are are far more flexible than that." ®