Via Technologies plans to challenge Intel and Advanced Micro Devices with a high-speed chip in the fourth quarter. Via will begin producing the Samuel 2 chip as a follow-up to the Samuel 1 processor introduced in June. Via expects to mass produce Samuel 2 processors running at speeds of 1 GHz by the first half of next year. The new chip represents Via's first attempt to challenge Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, and Advanced Micro at the high end of the computer chip business.
Speed is a measure of a chip's processing power.
Midrange computers currently use processors running between 300 and 600 MHz, about half the speed of a 1-GHz chip. Via's Samuel 1, for example, runs at speeds between 500 and 600 MHz. They've actually got a giga processor that works on paper, which is, in and of itself, a significant achievement,'' said David Wong, an analyst at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong. That will make the new processor 30 percent smaller than its predecessor. Smaller chips cost less because more can be made per silicon wafer, the material from which semiconductors are produced.