Intel Exec: Next Chipsets Are Biggest Leap In 10 Years

Intel's next generation of chipsets will mark a milestone in performance and digital convergence, combining several critical technologies to boost audio, video and image performance, a top executive of the chipmaker claimed.

Speaking at the biannual Intel Developer Forum, in San Francisco, Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel's Desktop Platform Group, said the forthcoming Alderwood and Grantsdale chipsets will deliver "the largest fundamental step forward in chipset capabilities in the last decade."

The chipsets will include PCI Express x16 Discrete Graphics capability -- which the company helped develop with graphics companies NVIDIA and ATI -- and Dual Channel DDR2-553 memory capability in a four-layer motherboard. In graphics alone, Burns said the performance provided by the chipsets would be "a quantum leap forward."

Grantsdale will be available in the first half of the year, while Alderwood is slated for shipment in the second half of 2004, according to Intel executives.

Burns said the performance boosts will go a long way toward capitalizing on the growing market for devices designed for digital convergence. Burns has been leading Intel's efforts aimed at both digital convergence and the digital home.

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