One of the big selling points for the Presario 8000 home computers according to the Compaq Computer Corp announcements, is that they include VideoLogic Plc’s PowerVR three-dimensional graphics chip fabricated by NEC Corp. Compaq describes PowerVR as the fastest three-dimensional technology available today, and up to four times faster than today’s game consoles.
And the audio processor in Compaq Computer Corp’s Presario 8000 is Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s Am78C201 InterWave audio processor.
According to a MIPS ABI Group newsletter, both MIPS Technologies Inc chip fabricator NEC Corp and Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG have 64-bit versions of their Unix operating systems running in the labs.
Voting for the delayed Metadata Coalition interchange specification was due to be completed on June 30. The specification is intended to standardize the input and export of flat file data formats so that they can be accessed by different tools and a cross multiple systems. Compliant tools are due by year-end.
Scientists at the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory say they have largely overcome problems on the road to using extreme ultraviolet light in photolithography. The short wavelength – 20 times shorter than currently-used beams, should enable manufacturers to produce chips that are 10 times faster and have 1,000 times the capacity of chips today early next century.
Meantime, Lucent Technologies Inc says its Bell Laboratories division has developed a new electron beam system that etches chip features at sizes four times smaller can be accomplished with current techniques. The new technology, called Scalpel, etches 0.08 micron lines; Scalpel, proprietary to Bell Labs, will be available for research applications as early as the end of this year.
MFS Telecommunications Co and the Pacific Bell arm of Pacific Telesis Group Inc have signed up as customers for Digital Equipment Corp’s Digital Internet Exchange, a combined switching and commercial data centre in Palo Alto, California. Lease charges for port connections for those requiring 100Mbps access are $5,200 a month, for those requiring 10Mbps are $1,500 a month. Full rack prices start at $750 a month.
Cisco Systems Inc has abandoned development of its LightStream 2020 enterprise switch, acquired with the takeover of LightStream Corp last year, according to CommunicationsWeek. The paper says it now intends to combine it with the StrataCom IGX; Cis co’s takeover of StrataCom Inc completed last week.
