The latest crop of Intel's Pentium III and Celeron processor chips was designed for the applied computing space. This line of chips provides an upgraded path comparable to that found on desktop PCs.
At the high end, Intel has announced the availability of the high-performance 733-MHz Pentium III in an FC-PGA package. This model was designed to operate with the Intel 840 chip set that supports dual processors. It has an on-chip 256-kbyte level-2 cache and a 133-MHz processor side bus. Plus, it supports up to 4 Gbytes of RAMBUS DRAM. This is an ideal configuration for high-performance embedded systems.
The 700-MHz Pentium III also is available in the FC-PGA package with the same size level-2 cache. It features a 100-MHz processor side bus designed to work with the Intel 440BX AGPset and the Intel 810 chip set. These can use PC-100 SDRAM.
Included in the three-chip 810 chip set are integrated 2D and 3D graphics with Direct AGP support, integrated Audio-Code 97 support, and low-power sleep modes. The video support comes with hardware motion compensation for better software DVD video decoding.
The 566-MHz Celeron processor is contained in a 370-pin FC-PGA package as well. It has half the on-chip level-2 cache of the Pentium IIIs. In addition, it supports the same chip sets as the 700-MHz Pentium III.
Two low-power chips are incorporated in a BGA package. The more costly of these is the 500-MHz Pentium III, with a 256-kbyte level-2 cache. Its less-expensive cousin is a 400-MHz Celeron. Both are designed to operate with the Intel 440BX AGPset chip set.
Intel provides board designs that are part of its scalable-performance board- design program. This program allows designers to use either a Pentium III or Celeron without having to redesign the board. As a result, time-to-market and design validation time can be reduced.
Intel Corp., 2200 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara, CA 95052-8119; (408) 765-8080; fax (408) 765-9904; www.intel.com.
