Intel Corp is fighting back against Advanced Micro Devices Inc today (Monday) with the launch of its promised Intel Mobile Processor line, including an expansion of the Pentium II mobiles and the first mobile versions of the low-end Celeron chips. The Mobile Pentium II chips come in 366 and 333MHz versions, and are the first complete Pentium IIs to come on a single die, integrating 20.6m transistors and including 256K on-die level 2 cache. The result is reduced component size and power consumption, and cache with three times faster access compared to off-die caches. A 256K on-die cache easily outperforms off-die 512K caches, Intel claims. Size is also reduced by Intel’s Ball Grid Array packaging, which is 97% lighter and 98% smaller than Desktop SECC. It’s less than one tenth of an inch high and weighs less than a nickel says Intel, which says it will continue to support Mobile Mini Cartridges, which were introduced with the first Mobile Pentium IIs in April 1998 (CI No 3,382). These, running at 233, 266 and 300MHz, continue to be available, but Intel has added 266PE and 300PE versions that include the on-die cache. The new Mobile Celerons come in clock speeds of 266 and 300MHz and promise a 30% performance boost over Pentiums with MMZ currently used for low-end systems. Pricing for the Pentium II chips in usual volumes is $187 (266MHz) $321 (300MHz) $465 (333MHz) and $696 (366MHz). Meanwhile, a recent report from International Data Corp calculates that Intel’s share of the microprocessor market fell to 75.7% in the fourth quarter, as AMD’s share rose to 15.5%, from 6.6% in the same quarter last year. AMD recently announced the availability of its K6-2 range of processors for mobile computers (CI No 3,576). National Semiconductor Inc’s Cyrix division won 5.6% in the quarter, up from 3.6% last year.
