One month after canceling most restrictions on the export of data encryption
product, the Clinton government is expected to announce that it has rejected
requests from Intel, Unisys and others to increase the maximum speed of
computers that can be exported around the world without requiring an export
permit.
Currently, such permits are needed for systems with an operating speed of
6,500 Mtops (millions of theoretical operations per second). That means Intel
will not be able to sell its forthcoming Itanium (Merced) 64-bit microprocessor
to PC makers in many countries outside the United States without an export
permit. And, PC makers around the world would also be severely restricted in
what they can do with the computers they produce. The Itanium chip is expected
to feature a speed of 25,000 Mtops, four times the current legal limit.
PC exports to as many as 50 countries, including India and Pakistan would be
affected should the Clinton Administration fail to raise the top level
sufficiently to accommodate for Intel's Itanium processors which are due to
arrive in this summer. Intel officials have told the government that the Itanium
chip will make the 6,500 Mtop level, set just last June, obsolete. But so far
the U.S. Commerce Department and Defense Department have resisted raising the
limit above around 12,500 Mtops, still only half the Itanium's initial
performance.
"It's our understanding that the new rules will not reflect this new
generation of chip,'' said Ken Kay, head of the Infotech Strategies industry
lobbying group in Washington. Kay said computer executives shouldn't have to
come begging for new rules every six months. "We call it the Mtop
treadmill. Everybody who's working on this realizes the system doesn't work.''
Intel's corporate spokesman Chuck Molloy said his company will continue to lobby
for further relaxation of the export restrictions. "Given the performance
increases in microprocessors, there will be a need to look at this again."
Other analysts said the Itanium issue clearly illuminates the fact that the
high-tech industry is moving too fast for federal bureaucrats to keep up. New
microprocessors with every higher performance levels are coming to the market at
the rate of 3 to 6 per year by each of the major suppliers. Since early 1999,
top-of-the-line Intel and AMD PC processor speeds have moved from 450 MHZ to
500, to 550. to 600. to 650. to 700, to 733, to 750 and most recently to 800
MHz.