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National Semiconductor Selling Cyrix
Rob Miller writes
"National Semiconductor has announced the sale of Cyrix. "
So if you have half a billion dollars burning a hole in your
pocket...
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This is a shame, though I can't blame them.
I've build a variety of Linux boxes on the MII, simple because a lot of people I know needed something cheap that worked halfway decently.
I could put together a workable system for a couple hundred dollars.
MII-333 $ 31.00
TX-PRO II MB 51.00
32MB SDRAM 32.00
3.2GB HD 79.00
36X CD-ROM 32.00
3.5" Floppy 15.00
AT Minitower 19.00
Around $250 excluding monitor, keyboard, and mouse. And I would normally pick up an honest to god IBM keyboard for four or five bucks at the computer shows, a cheap five dollar mouse, and let them decide whether to buy a decent monitor or pick up a used 15" at the computer shows for around $40 a piece.
Well, in the x86 chip market, it seems we're down to three now - Intel (still the leader), AMD (catching up), and WinChip (whose chips, despite the name, work in OSs other than Windows).
I personally have a Pentium II 266 and a Winchip C6 200, but I'll probably get a K7-based system when the K7 comes out, so I'll have one from each. Competition is good.
PS - why is the WinChip 200 so damn slow? I don't use that computer a lot, so it doesn't really bother me, but it seems to be about the same speed as my dad's pentium 120 laptop...is it supposed to be that speed? Any idea what the Pentium Rating would be on that? (I like how Cyrix does that...makes comparison a lot easier)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I don't think Cyrix is going to survive in the x86 market. Everyone who is trying to compete with Intel is doing so by losing money. The only company making money in the x86 market is Intel. Companies like Cyrix cannot survive in this environment.
I remember hearing a year or two ago about Cyrix's "Jalepeno" core, but after a while I came to realize that it just isn't going to happen. Cyrix is too far behind now to catch up. I've been wondering what they have been doing for the past 18 months when they have introduced no new designs.
I put a Cyrix PR200 into a computer I built for my sister almost two years ago. It is still going strong and still meeting all of her family's modest needs. At the time, it was far and away the best value in the x86 market. Now I think AMD has surpassed Cyrix in bang:buck ratio. You can get a K6-2 350 for about the same price as a MII-333, and the AMD chip will beat the Cyrix chip in every way.
This didn't stop me from putting a Cyrix PR300 (overclocked to PR333, although I suspect that Cyrix is selling the exact same chip as 300 and 333 just to try to differentiate the "top end" of their product line a little bit) into a computer that I built for my next-door neighbor for use at his business. That level of performance will be more than enough for the simple real estate management package he needs to run, and combined with a super-cheap built-in audio & video socket 7 motherboard, I was able to keep the price of the computer very, very low (sub-$450).
I guess that if Cyrix goes away I will miss them, because their chips have always done very well for me. I just don't think that they're keeping up with the market at all. And they're at the lowest of the low end, where it's nearly impossible to make a decent profit.
Definitely sacked.
The press release is here.
(So hah, you're wrong, Jordy)
Carl
From the National posting, it sounds like National is selling a fab and giving up on x86 pin-compatible architectures (ie: MII and Jalapeno). They will continue to develop the MediaGX line of systems. Further, they will refocus on information appliancs (like that web pad thing that Cyrix is developing).
--Lenny
//"You can't prove anything about a program written in C or FORTRAN.
It's really just Peek and Poke with some syntactic sugar."
Back in the early 1990's Cyrix had superior floating point performance.
Too bad they didn't keep that advantage. Floating point performance is more important than CPU performance for many games, and it would have made a difference in my processor decision.
I bought an Intel Celery 300a because of the floating point performance. I will probably buy a K7 in the future because it looks like the K7 will beat Intel (but who really knows for sure?)
Running Linux, my 300a Celeron isn't any faster than my Pentium 133. The system feels exactly the same. Compiles go quicker, but X runs just as fast on slow chips. That's because Linux is so fast on just about any computer, it's hard to tell the difference from ludicrous speed and "plaid." So, for my purposes, I don't care a bit about how fast the CPU integer performance is. The extra floating point kick makes a big difference when I am gaming though.
Cyrix could have carved out the entire gaming niche for itself if only they had built a CPU with P-200 integer performance, but with super duper floating point performance.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The worst part of the whole situation is what it's going to do to the South Portland, ME location. The news.com article also mentions that they are going to be selling a controlling interest in one of their fab processes too...
This sucks for my friends who are supposed to be working at National this summer. Doh!
Somehow, I think that's probably a bad idea. Open Source works well because compilers are cheap (free for most of us) and its easy for just about anyone to write new software. Also, people can still make money adding additional features to Open Source projects for companies that are willing to pay for it.
But, at least until chip fabrication is cheap enough for a small business to afford, the only thing "open source" chips would do is eliminate the jobs of lots of computer engineers or cut their salaries in half... and you know what that means... more engineers going back to school for their MBAs!
The result of this for AMD is pretty interesting, as they are now the major competitor for Intel (not that they haven't been for the past year or so). Even though it is conceivable that Cyrix could be bought and rematerialize as a strong company, as another poster pointed out, that's extremely unlikely.
Research takes a *lot* of money, and because of this news that Cyrix is being sold, it seems extremely obvious that they are short on cash (and probably ideas).
So has Intel won? It's interesting to think that Intel has established such a strong brand and product line that they've done what many predicted they wouldn't be able to do: defeat their competitors.
Hopefully this'll wake some people up over there at AMD, that all the patting on the head they've been giving themselves due to their moderate success doesn't mean much-- they haven't really beaten Intel, but rather just established a niche for themselves. But Intel isn't stupid, and they're fighting back with their own lines of cheap relatively fast processors (Celerons), which can potentially eat away at AMD's little niche in the market.
Anyway, it would be extremely pleasant if AMD's K7 did well. When I read the false reports against their machines, I was extremely disappointed, since it would definitely nice to see AMD do well against Intel. Diversity is always good.
I remember one of the MS memos showing their concern with the high percentage of a computer price that is the OS license. I also remember one of their possible solutions was to build or buy a chip fab, and thus to lock you in at the chip level versus the OS level. Today, this is even more likely due to the shakiness of the Wintel alliance.
If they can do this, there will be serious trouble for the Linux community. One reason that Linux is so popular is that it runs on a cheap, open hardware platform.
If I were Bill Gates, I would be seriously considering a bid, and my largest concern would be sliding it past the DOJ. After all, he can put a EULA on a chip requiring you to run an MS operating system on it.
--The basis of all love is respect
Well, I'm not saying Open Source chips (or Open Design), but Open Datasheets. For a start.
With datasheets I mean at least programming information, so that drivers can be written for OS's like Linux or others.
I find that a lot of the time my company (one of those small ones) is just not able to use a certain chip because we DON'T want to use M$ products (in our embedded environment, strange uh?). This means we can't use the factory M$ drivers, which means we need datasheets to write our own drivers for our own OS (or Linux).
Mainly the larger chip makers that don't have their datasheets available on the Web are a pain in the neck to get in contact with - example - NeoMagic: they don't even want to put me through to sales, let alone tech support. We don't fit in their business-plan, too small. So we use C&T because they have their datasheets readily available on the Web.
I don't believe that providing programming information for a device gives away your internal design: if I want to know the programming info real badly I will get it anyway through reverse engineering. Believe me, I have done it.
An other excuse that is used is that they don't want to 'support' the effort of third-parties writting device drivers.
Which is complete crap. If the datasheet is good, no one needs support to write a driver. For the drivers I have written (I guess about 12), I have only contacted the manufacturer twice. The first time to tell them the datasheet had errors the second time to tell them their silicon had errors.
And how difficult would it be to sell a couple of more chips to little companies like ours?
I still hope for Open Datasheets but I'm sure Open Source chips will come too. The biggest part of a chip is actually software anyways (VHDL, Verilog).
Breace.
"The few functions that made their way onto the main chip -- 3D graphics, mainly -- were put there by National's rivals: AMD with 3DNow! and Intel with Katmai."
What a load!
The MediaGX has CPU AND Memory controller AND VGA AND PCI built into one single chip. That's hardly to be called trivial and I still think that's pretty neat. A chip that comes close is the STPC from Thompson, but they don't mention that. Good journalism. NOT.
This chip is still a great device for wearables and other embedded applications. If only the support would have been better (try to find a real datasheet, or try to speak to someone) I would have probably used this chip in new designs.
(Off topic) Open Source Software is one thing, but wouldn't it be great if chip manufacturers would _finally_ be a bit more open about their designs, 'Open Datasheets'? Pffw...
Breace.
...not just Intel, AMD is a tougher competitor now more than ever. AMD has the anything-but-Intel-yet-compatible-with-Intel market pretty well cornered. Cyrix is relegated to the dirt-cheap sector, where there isn't much profit.