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Intel Unveils Chip Set for Better Sound

Posted on: Friday, 18 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

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.

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