Intel Unveils Chip Set for Better Sound

Intel unveils chip set for better sound, graphics

By IAN KING and JASON KELLY Bloomberg News

Friday, June 18, 2004

Intel Corp. has introduced a set of chips it hopes will stem slowing sales growth by wooing computer buyers with advanced graphics and theater-quality sound.

The new chip set, dubbed Grantsdale, will be sold with the fastest Pentium processor, Intel Vice President William Siu said Thursday at a product demonstration at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco.

Chip sets are groups of microprocessors used to enable communications within a computer. Intel gets less than 10% of its sales from chip sets, but the technology is increasingly important in the age of wireless, portable computing.

Intel, whose integrated circuits run more than 80% of the world’s PCs, is releasing chips such as Grantsdale to enhance the semiconductors that work with a computer’s main processor. Sharper graphics, lower power use and wireless Internet connections are more important to consumers and businesses than clock speed, the rate that electrical pulses move on a chip, investors said.

“They have to innovate,” said John Waterman, chief investment officer at Rittenhouse Asset Management, which has $12 billion under management, including Intel shares. “I don’t think the consumer is going to buy a PC every year because Intel has a new, faster chip.”

“This is the most ambitious makeover in the PC platform for over a decade,” Siu told reporters and analysts Thursday.

The Grantsdale introduction comes a year after Intel unveiled Centrino, a chip set that enables wireless Internet connections and longer battery life in notebook computers. It has a slower clock speed than desktop models.