It will be raining chips at CeBit

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are expected to release a flood of chips next week as the world's biggest trade show rolls into Hanover, Germany.

Sources say the chipmakers will unveil new processors for PCs, notebooks and servers at the huge CeBit trade show, which begins Monday. AMD is expected to announce faster versions of its desktop and mobile Athlon XP chips. Rival Intel is said to be preparing to launch new Xeon chips for servers.

CeBit is a weeklong technology trade show that dwarfs North America's annual Comdex Fall show. Last year, CeBit attracted about 850,000 people, compared with the 125,000 that showed up in Las Vegas for Comdex. Unlike Las Vegas, though, Hanover is a small city with few hotels; so product managers, sales representatives and others stay in the furnished basements and spare bedrooms of the local citizenry.

Sources familiar with AMD's plans say the company will launch its Athlon XP 2100+ chip for desktop PCs and then its mobile Athlon XP 1600+ chip for notebooks. The two new chips will represent speed upgrades for its current Athlon XP line of processors and rival cutting-edge products from Intel. AMD will likely also discuss its plans for manufacturing chips using its 130-nanometer manufacturing process, which will shrink the chips and allow AMD to boost the speed.

Meanwhile, sources say Intel will formally announce its Xeon MP, a version of its Foster chip for servers with four or more processors. As expected, the chip will be based on Intel's NetBurst processor architecture, the same silicon that is behind the Pentium 4, but with server-oriented enhancements, such as a 1MB on-chip Level 3 cache. The cache stores important data closer to the processor core, speeding performance.

A host of other PC-related companies--including makers of motherboards, PC graphics cards and chips, and other chip set makers--will also bring out their wares at the show, which runs from March 13 through March 20.

News source: ZDNet News