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Intel to roll out new microprocessors

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CIOL Bureau
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Duncan Martell

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SAN FRANCISCO: Intel Corp., the world's largest computer chipmaker, will do

its best to build up publicity at this week's semi-annual conference for its

newest chips. The conference has been held in the backdrop of a sizeable fall in

sales of PCs due to slowing worldwide economies.

Besides seeking extensive publicity for its latest Pentium IV microprocessor,

Intel will also be trotting out new chips for servers, that will serve as the

backbone for corporate networks, and talking about its Itanium processor.

"They'll be beating the drum as much as they can on the Pentium IV

because that's supposed to be the basis for much of their salvation this year.

They're also going to talk about their server processors, mobile solutions and

networking microprocessors," said Needham & Co. analyst Dan Scovel.

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Intel said it expects roughly 5,000 developers to attend the Intel Developer

Forum at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, where chief executive Craig

Barrett will speak about what he calls Intel's 'Four Platform and Silicon

Architectures' that are expected to fuel the company's growth going forward.

New businesses



Intel in the past few years has invested billions of dollars, either through
buying companies or building up entirely new businesses, to diversify its sales.

Despite this, roughly $25.3 billion or 75 per cent, of Intel's total business

revenue continues to come from the sale of microprocessors.

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Intel plans to take the wraps off its new Pentium III Xeon chip that will run

at 900 megahertz and boast a larger cache or 2 megabytes. Cache is a type of

memory that sits on the chipset very close to the microprocessor to boost its

performance. Yet another new chip for servers, based on the Pentium 4, running

at a speed of 1.4 gigahertz will be showcased. This will be almost twice as fast

as the current fastest Xeon, which runs at 700 megahertz.

Intel, along with other high-tech stalwarts such as Microsoft Corp.,

Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Computer Corp., Compaq Computer Corp. and the smaller

Apple Computer Inc. were broad-sided last year with a holiday-buying spree

failing to take-off.

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Slower revenue growth



This, coupled with slowing economy, has forced Intel to have a re-look at its
first-quarter sales. The company now expects sales to be about 15 per cent lower

than the $8.70 billion that it had in the fourth quarter, far lower than the

typical 5 per cent or so decline that is typically seen.

Despite a perceptible fall in demand, the Calif-based Intel plans to increase

its spending on chip plants and chip-making equipment this year to roughly $7.5

billion and has planned a $4.3 billion-budget for research and development.

Enough indication that the chip giant continues to invest in next-generation

technologies such as larger, dinner-plate-sized silicon wafers and finer line

widths - 0.13 micron - that are etched onto chips.

However, Barrett declined to comment on rumors that Intel's top brass had

already decided to cut capital spending. "We have given our guidance for

capital spending and there is no public change," he said in response to a

query from a reporter.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.

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