Advertisment

STM, Rise team up on embedded Pentium

author-image
CIOL Bureau
New Update

STMicroelectronics and Rise Technology of Santa Clara announced they are joining forces to create a Pentium-compatible processor for embedded applications in a new generation of portable information appliances.

Advertisment

STM currently markets a line of Intel 486-compatible embedded processors. Using Rise’s processor design expertise and STM’s manufacturing capabilities, the two companies hope to compete effectively in the potentially vast market for inexpensive embedded processors. STM is already working with Hitachi and Hewlett-Packard to jointly develop similar processors based on non-Intel architectures.

STM and Rise will compete with National Semiconductor and Transmeta who are also targeting Internet appliances and portable computing devices with Intel-compatible embedded chips. Intel compatibility is key to success in the information appliance market where compatibility with the leading browsers is a key product requirement.

Compatibility with Intel means devices built around the chip can use virtually any browser plug-in.



To date, Rise has tried, but largely failed to establish a position for its Pentium-compatible chips in the notebook and desktop PC market. The deal with STM will give the company a new and possibly profitable direction as info appliance device market is expected to grow into a multi-billion business.

"It turned out that in the traditional PC markets, low-power chips are nice, but they're not essential, and there was a lot of competition in that market from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices," said David Lin, CEO of Rise. "For information appliances, though, low-power chips will be essential. So we're dropping out of the traditional PC market, and focusing on information appliances.''

tech-news