Centaur Stops MPU That Integrates Core Logic

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October 07, 1998 (8:19 AM EDT)

Centaur Stops MPU That Integrates Core Logic

By Mark Hachman,

Centaur Technology, a subsidiary of Integrated Device Technology (IDT), will announce next week that it has canceled plans to develop a microprocessor that only integrates core logic. Instead, Centaur is "redirecting" development to add graphics technology derived from an outside source.

IDT officials separately confirmed the company has shelved development of its own stand-alone graphics chip, which industry sources said was called VisionArray. Instead, Centaur executives said they will probably license or work with one of the 30-odd existing PC graphics-chip companies.

As of May, Centaur's road map called for the existing WinChip 2 microprocessor to be quickly succeeded by a WinChip 2+, with double the on-chip cache memory. In early 1999, Centaur said it planned to roll out the WinChip 2+NB with an integrated "north bridge" of the core logic, but has since decided against it.

"What I think I'd choose to say is we've 'redirected' development [of the WinChip 2+NB]," said Glenn Henry, president of Austin-based Centaur. "What we discovered is instead of integrating just the north bridge, people want higher levels of integration. But I'm not going to say what we're doing right now."

What Henry did say, however, is Centaur's road map has been rewritten yet again. The WinChip 2+ has been renamed the WinChip 3, scheduled to run at 233 MHz to 300 MHz. But the original WinChip 3, a 500-MHz to 600-MHz part expected in 1999, now will be called the WinChip 4.

Henry is expected to announce the changes at next week's Microprocessor Forum, sponsored by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based analyst company MicroDesign Resources.

The redesigned road map is not the only hurdle Centaur's WinChip has had to overcome. In late September, IDT executives said the company has had problems manufacturing the Centaur-designed WinChip at higher clock speeds, as well as utilizing manufacturing capacity that is sitting idle.

"We're shipping 240-, 225-, and 200-MHz versions of the WinChip," said Dave Ct, vice president of marketing at Santa Clara, Calif.-based IDT, at the time. "But the market's at 266 MHz."

Centaur's redesigned integrated processor could take the same approach as the MediaGX or MXi integrated processors from Santa Clara, Calif.-based National Semiconductor and its Cyrix subsidiary. Both Centaur and Cyrix design the microprocessors their parent companies then manufacture.

Both Cyrix and Centaur's strategy is to design microprocessors that integrate discrete components in a single chip, which lowers the cost for the OEM. In May, Centaur's Henry described three approaches: integrating the microprocessor and the north bridge; integrating the entire core logic chip set plus graphics; and finally, integrating the processor, north bridge, and graphics chip.

Centaur might take a similar approach to Cyrix's MediaGX or MXi, which integrate at least the processor and graphics, Henry said. But he added Centaur was eyeing graphics technology, probably sourced from a third party.

"There are 34 graphics chips out there," he said. "Graphics is technically very complex."

But market forces, rather than technical challenges, have apparently doomed IDT's own stand-alone PC graphics chip.

A spokesman at IDT confirmed the company has canceled development of its stand-alone graphics chip. "Graphics was not an area we decided we wanted to go into," the spokesman said, adding competitive pricing pressures in the graphics industry did not make the chip worth the investment.

An industry source close to IDT's aborted effort reported the chip was named VisionArray, part of a program dating back almost four years. The high-end PC chip reportedly contained a large number of instruction units that would execute instructions in parallel, a common design technique in high-end computing.

Jon Peddie, president of analyst firm Jon Peddie Associates, in Tiburon, Calif., called IDT''s graphics efforts "schizophrenic," saying the company's on-again, off-again relationship with graphics dates back to when IDT designed floating-point co-processors for Intel's 286 microprocessor.