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IBM announces chip for Net-attached devices

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CIOL Bureau
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SAN FRANCISCO: International Business Machines Corp. announced on Thursday

said it was designing a semiconductor for a consumer-electronics devices

connected to the Internet, that would address issues of "pervasive

computing."

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The IBM PowerPC Internet Appliance Platform combines a microprocessor with

other capabilities such as touch-screen management, memory drivers and

liquid-crystal display drivers that will cost about $60, IBM said. The

announcement by IBM is in line with the trend in the chip industry to combine

multi-functions into one chip. This becomes possible as engineering advances

allow more and more transistors to be packed onto a single semiconductor.

IBM's Microelectronics division, based in N.Y., would assemble most of the

chip in advance for customers to help keep costs down, while the customers would

still be able to modify the chip themselves for specific applications. An IBM

spokesman said that Armonk, NY-based IBM, the world's No 1 computer maker, is

already working with about six Japanese consumer-electronics companies that are

planning to use the IBM chip in future products. The spokesman declined to name

the companies.

IBM said that current microprocessors designed for personal computers are not

flexible enough to lend themselves to practical use in battery-powered devices

that are connected to the Internet.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.

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