Taiwan Core-Logic Maker Integrates Multiple Pentium Peripherals
Core logic and graphics silicon supplier Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SiS; Taipei, Taiwan) has just announced what it claims is the industry's first single chip with integrated computing, consumer and communications hooks. SiS affectionately refers to this as 3C chip technology.
Supporting Pentium processors, the firm's SiS630 can endow a mainstream PC design with the functions of a north bridge chip, a south bridge chip (the SiS960) and a 128-bit 3-D graphics accelerator (SiS300)--but all on one piece of silicon. SiS claims its chip can easily save over $150 for board makers and help accelerate time-to-market. The device is optimized for the latest Pentium and Celeron CPUs.
Soft modem horsepower
The device can permit you to deliver the functions of V.90 host signal processing "soft" modem as well as 10 Mbit/second and 100 Mbit/second Fast Ethernet capability. It will also support audio and hardware DVD playback, and packs a 2-D/3-D graphics engine.
The SiS630 is also PC'99 and PCI 2.2 compliant, supports synchronous and asynchronous front-side bus frequencies, supports PC133 VCRAM/SDRAM, three DIMMs and up to 1.5 Gbytes of main memory. It also supports Ultra ATA66 IDE, five Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, and has a digital flat panel interface for TV-out, LCD-out and dual view capability.
SiS has also spun a single chip cousin for the Advanced Micro Devices (Sunnyvale, CA) Type K6-III. This companion chip, dubbed the SiS540, has the same features as SiS630. Both ICs can be used in designs with the firm's SiS950 super I/O chip. Both SiS630 and the SiS540 are packaged in plastic ball grid arrays (BGA) packages. The SiS950 comes in a 128-pin plastic quad flat pack (PQFP).
The SiS630 and SiS540 will be sampled in June and July with mass production in August and September, respectively. The SiS630 is priced at about $35 a pop/10,000 while the SiS540 goes for about six dollars less. For further information, call Ms. Sylvia Lin at +886-2-29161619, Ext. 353, or e-mail her at sylvia@sis.com.tw.