With the launch of its 3 series chipset (Bearlake) at Computex Taipei 2007, Intel expects to see the chipset ramp to become the mainstream standard in 2007, while introducing new features such as Turbo Memory (Robson) into the desktop PC market. Digitimes recently had the chance to interview Richard Malinowski, chipset group vice president and general manager of Intel and Steve R Peterson, Intel's chipset and graphics marketing director to discuss Intel's thoughts on pushing the 3 series.
Q: Does Intel foresee any difficulty migrating to the 3 series from Intel's previous 965 chipset family?
A: Of course. We have been discussing with Taiwan-based motherboard partners regarding the migration between the 965 and 3 series and have been providing them with chipset samples so that they could start to run performance tests before the launch date. Intel's research team has been working to ensure the migration goes according to plan and to help motherboard makers control their inventories efficiently.
In fact, P35 and G33 chipsets were shipped to channels worldwide two months before Computex. This let consumers experience the new products ahead of launch to help boost awareness. Before the launch in June a few days ago, over one million 3 series chipsets had already been shipped out.
Q: Can 3 series chipsets benefit motherboard ASPs (average selling prices)?
A: We can't make such predictions, however according to discussions we've had with motherboard makers, we notice that the new 3 series chipsets have been benefiting marketing and sales over other consumer products. With the 3 series' ability to support DirectX 10 and DDR3 memory along with innovation from the motherboard makers, ASPs could be boosted.
Q: What is Intel's view regarding the competition?
A: Although the chipset market has always been competitive, it is still healthy. Intel continues to keep good relationships with AMD, Nvidia, VIA Technologies and Silicon Integrated System (SiS). Currently, Intel's biggest challenge is whether the company is heading in the right directions. Therefore in addition to improving our technology; we are also watching feedback from the market.
Q: Does Intel have plans to integrate northbridge and southbridge chips?
A: Currently, Intel's chipset research team doesn't have plans to integrate the two chips into one. This is due to the fact that the southbridge is still consider an important differentiator in the PC market. Although the market already has chipsets that integrated both a north and southbridge, these chipsets are mostly adopted in entry-level products.
However, that doesn't mean Intel would not be interested in pursuing this solution in the future. As long as a development leads to improvements in our products, we will always do our best to achieve it.
This interview was translated from Chinese.
Richard Malinowski, chipset group vice president and general manager of Intel
Photo: John Hsu, Digitimes, June 2007
Article translated by Joseph Tsai and edited by Ricky Morris
