Vanwege Intel's deal met Rambus is het voor de chipgigant niet toegestaan om voor 2003 een eigen DDR chipset te introduceren, zo staat in dit bericht van EBN Online. De komende tijd mogen we dus alleen van VIA, ALi en SiS DDR compatible P3 en Celeron chipsets verwachten. Het is nog onduidelijk of Intel wel voor haar nieuwe server CPU's (Foster en McKinley) een dergelijke chipset mag ontwikkelen; de voorwaarde zou namelijk alleen betrekking hebben op consumenten PC's.
Intel Corp. is essentially barred from introducing its own double data rate (DDR) chip set for microprocessors in personal computers before 2003, under terms of its 1997 licensing agreement with Rambus Inc.
Industry sources said the virtually unknown restriction explains why Intel recently licensed patents for chip set support of DDR memories to Via Technologies Inc., Acer Laboratories Inc, and Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SiS) in Taiwan. The pacts allow these three companies to offer DDR chip sets for Intel's Pentium III and Celeron processors.
An Intel spokesman in Santa Clara denied that the company's DDR chip set deals had any connection with Intel's own Rambus licensing agreement. He agreed, however, that independent chip set suppliers could fill a void for DDR support in PCs with Pentium III and Celeron processors, since Intel has no double data rate products.
[...] Another independent PC logic chip supplier, ServerWorks Inc. of Santa Clara, is also making DDR chip sets for Intel's next generation "Foster" and "McKinley" processors for servers. Intel might be able to market its own DDR chip set for servers under its Rambus agreement, which bars the company from offering double data rate support specifically for personal computers. The issue here is whether servers are considered different from powerful PCs.
Tanks DiGiSTORM voor de tip!