Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2000/07/13/transmeta_not_x86_compatible_intel/
Transmeta not x86 compatible – Intel
And PowerNow no good either
Posted in Channel, 13th July 2000 11:25 GMT
Intel has made a spirited defence of its SpeedStep technology, describing its competition - that is AMD - as a mere follower rather than a leader.
At the same time, Don MacDonald, director of marketing of the mobile platform group, also claimed Transmeta's solution was not entirely compatible.
He said: "You should check whether the Transmeta chip is 100 per cent x86 compatible." He said information at "Tom's Register" led him to that conclusion.
Nor, said MacDonald, was AMD's PowerNow any great shakes, just because it had different power states. More was not better in this case, he said.
"AMD and others have recognised the growth of the [mobile] market," he said. Intel fully expected stronger competition in the future.
He confirmed that Intel would release a 1GHz mobile Pentium III at some period next year, but declined to give a date for the launch.
And he said that while it was conceivable that Intel could migrate its SpeedStep technology to the mobile Celeron platform, there was no compelling reason for it to do so.
People were prepared to pay additional money for the extra functionality SpeedStep brought at the high end, said MacDonald.
He said that Intel's future mobile technology would concentrate on producing higher clock frequencies at lower power consumption.
There is a special low power IA group within his division of Intel, he said, that were able to produce chips running at a third of a watt.
Intel needed, however, to further collaborate with other players in the industry to further reduce the power in other components in a notebook.
Screens, for example, typically consumed around 2.8W, while battery technology could still do with some improvement. ®