Ik kwam via AMD Zone bij dit interessant artikel van Microprocessor Report. Nu VIA na de overname van Cyrix en WinChip ook zelf CPU's maakt wordt het een concurrent van AMD in het low-end segment. De schrijver van het artikel speculeert dat VIA als gevolg hiervan mogelijk gaat stoppen met het bakken van Athlon chipsets:
In the low end of the market, Intel has effectively used Celeron price cuts as a club to beat its competitors senseless. I believe the only way for a competitor to survive in this segment is to match both Celeron's clock speed and its socket with a lower-cost product. Matching the socket is necessary, because there isn't enough profit in this segment to support a non-Intel infrastructure. Competitors must have a lower manufacturing cost to generate profits from their lower prices and lower volumes.If Via produces a 0.18-micron Socket 370 version of WinChip 4, it could follow this path to success. Centaur's compact core will cost less to build than Celeron. With a Socket 370 interface, Via can ride Intel's coattails into standard PC motherboards.
As Via pursues this strategy, its enemy is not just Intel but AMD. That vendor's K6 parts are a big seller in the Celeron space, and AMD plans to push its new Athlon processor into the low end next year. Although Via has been working on a Slot A chip set for Athlon, I doubt that chip set will see the light of day, given the company's new strategy. Why build chip sets that support only your enemy? With Via and Intel controlling more than 90% of the chip-set market, that leaves only a few also-rans (and AMD itself) likely to support Slot A.
