After dipping its toe into the R-series RISC water with the acquisition of microcontroller designer HDL Systems Inc (CI No 2,518) Philips Electronics NV’s semiconductor division is sidling up to PowerPC, and said to be joining the 30-strong Taiwan NewPC Consortium that is developing integrated circuits to work with the PowerPC. The year-old consortium has also won National Semiconductors Corp to its ranks and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd may follow. The group’s buying guide includes OEM products such as networking, graphics and multimedia boards and a motherboard that which can host 601, 603 and 604 versions of PowerPC.
