IBM Corp’s Microelectronics division yesterday denied rumors that it plans to pull out of its manufacturing and licensing relationship with National Semiconductor Inc’s Cyrix subsidiary. Press reports suggested Big Blue is on the brink of announcing plans to cease manufacturing and selling Cyrix 6X86MX PC chips because it does not have the flexibility to alter the designs or implement any of its own unique processes. National Semiconductor will take over all Cyrix chip manufacturing from IBM, the reports said. However spokespeople for IBM and National Semiconductor denied the reports, insisting that the companies’ relationship currently remains unchanged. A spokesperson for National Semiconductor told ComputerWire that the company was merely delivering on previously-announced company statements, we announced our intention to acquire Cyrix a year ago. Cyrix didn’t have its own fab and we wanted access to its X86 processor technology, the spokesperson said, We also said by the summer of 1998 we would be producing Cyrix chips in our own new fab plant and we announced that last week. He added that National Semiconductor has many ‘foundry’ relationships- where product is made on behalf of the company by a third party – and that the agreement with IBM was one of the key partnerships which National Semiconductor would be anxious to keep. The spokesperson also denied reports that Cyrix was angered by IBM frequently undercutting its prices, making it difficult for the company to win deals with PC vendors. Linley Gwennap, editorial director for the Microprocessor Report told ComputerWire that the trigger to the rumors is National Semiconductor’s public ramping up, via a press release, of its production of Cyrix chips. Now people have just put two and two together, he said. But he added that the rumors were a valid line of reasoning, saying in the medium or long term there was a strong likelihood that the two companies would go in different directions. He said: Cyrix used to have to rely on IBM to build its chips but once it was acquired by National Semicon a year ago there was immediately less of a need to use an outside foundry. Gwennap said that National Semiconductor didn’t have all the technology or capacity to produce all the chips Cyrix needs at present but once its new fab is fully-fitted (by the end of next year) the company probably wouldn’t need IBM anymore. The two companies will continue their relationship for the next several months, and into 1999, whereupon he predicts they will work out some type of amicable split.
