Wednesday, March 19, 2003
ATI Technologies Inc. on Tuesday announced that the Canadian graphics chip firm had reached an licensing agreement with Intel Corp. to provide a chipset for the new Pentium M mobile processor.
ATI is believed to be the first third-party chipset supplier to be given a Pentium M license.
The agreement comes one week after Intel launched the Pentium M and corresponding Centrino brand. Mobile PC makers are required to use Intel's own 855 chipset with the processor and Wi-Fi wireless LAN module to be able to use the Centrino brand on their products. However, licensed third party vendors, such as ATI, can sell their chipsets as an alternate source to support Pentium M outside the Centrino brand.
The quick licensing of ATI for the Pentium M chipset comes after many analysts had expected Intel to delay opening the market for third party chipsets until the processor titan had time to firmly establish its own 855 core logic unit and Centrino brand.
Some industry sources said ATI was a special case. The Canadian vendor has a patent cross-licensing agreement with Intel that could cover chipsets, it was said.
An ATI spokesman could not disclose how soon the graphics firm expected to have its Pentium M chipset ready to market.
By: DocMemory
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