Featuring the VIA Chrome9 IGP core supporting DirectX 9.0 and Chromotion 3.0, the VIA CN896 PCI Express chipset enables mainstream Vista-ready VIA solutions

Taipei, Taiwan, 26 February 2007 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today launched the VIA CN896 digital media IGP chipset, certified Vista-ready by Microsoft and designed to provide OEMs with a flexible platform for power efficient embedded and desktop systems.

At the heart of the VIA CN896 chipset is the VIA Chrome9 HC IGP (integrated graphics processor) featuring a DirectX 9.0 3D accelerator for high performance and a 2D accelerator for productivity applications, while the Chromotion video display engine boasts advanced hardware-based video processing and rendering such as MPEG-2 decoding acceleration and picture enhancement through adaptive de-interlacing and video deblocking technologies.

The VIA CN896 chipset supports the VIA V4 Bus for the power efficient VIA C7 and VIA Eden embedded processors and VIA C7-D desktop processors, which are recognized by Microsoft as designed for Windows Vista.

The VIA CN896 features a dedicated CRT interface as well as flexibility for additional video ports such as DVI transmitter, LVDS transmitter, SDTV and HDTV TV encoder, providing customers with the ability to tailor VIA CN896 systems for use with flat panel displays, a wide variety of LCD panels, TFT color panels, DVI monitors and TV displays, with separate display engines enabling two outputs to display at the same time, with different information and at different resolutions, pixel depths and refresh rates. This greatly enhances the display options for customers designing thin clients, industrial PCs, point of sale machines, digital signage and other embedded products. The inclusion of a 16-lane PCI Express port provides additional upgrade options for desktops, whilst keeping the base configuration affordable for the mainstream, and a further 1-lane for the latest peripherals.

“The VIA C7 processor-CN896 chipset combination provides all the flexibility in display options that embedded customers need, within a very low thermal profile,” said Chewei Lin, Vice President of Product Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “While in the desktop space, the VIA CN896 meets the requirements for systems that are currently in demand, whether small footprint or standard sized, by providing a robust Vista capable solution with good upgrade options.”

By passing the Microsoft Windows Vista logo tests, customers can design systems using the VIA CN896 PCI Express chipset with the assuredness of digitally signed drivers and trouble-free installation of Microsoft Windows Vista, including Ultimate, Enterprise, Business, Home Premium and Home Basic editions.

 Intel has finished the work on ICH9 Southbridge and now working on ICH10 slated for launch next year. Intel has removed PS/2 and LPT ports support from the chipset. The new ICHs will include a new 10GB Ethernet controller and together with some new technology from Intel, it will reduce load on CPU and improve power consumption. Intel will include a Wireless Ethernet controller into ICH10 too. The Bearlake motherboard will employ IAMT technology and hardware based firewall. A performance improvement of 15% is expected with the new chipsets working together with Conroe processors.

SiS mobile chipsets for this year are mainly focus on IGP chipsets with Mirage 4 DX10 graphics supporting both Intel and AMD processors. Samples are expected to appear in Q3 with mass production targeted for Q4.

On the Intel front, SiSM673 supports the old Pentium 4 processors while M673MX supports Pentium M series. Both chipsets support DDR3/2-667/533, Hyper Streaming Technology, Mirage 4 Graphics, SiS Advance Real Video Technology, PCI Express link and pair up with SiS968/969 Southbridge.

On the AMD front, we can expect to see M772 supporting AM2+/AM3 processors on HyperTransport 3.0 bus, Advance Real Video Technology, C3 w/ Stutter Mode and C1E state. The discrete SiS757 comes without Mirage 4. Shutter mode allows the chipset and other components to bypass the CPU and access system memory while in C3 mode to save more power. Both chipsets will be paired up with SiS969 Southbridge.

According to the latest SiS roadmap that we have seen, SiS Mirage 4 DX10 graphics core will start appear in SiS673/673FX IGP chipsets for Intel Core 2 Quad and SiS772 chipset for AMD AM2+/AM3 Stars processors. These chipsets are built on 80nm process with max TDP of 2.5W.

On the Intel front, SiS673 will start sampling in June this year supporting Intel Core 2 Quad processors, SiS Hyper Streaming Technology, DDR3-1066 or DDR2-800/667 memories, SiS Mirage 4 DX10 graphics core, SiS Advance Real Video Technology (H.264/VC1) and PCIe x16 link. SiS673 will pair up with SiS968/969 Southbridge and we can expect mass production in Q3. SiS673FX will come along in Q4 with specs pretty similar to SiS963 except it supports DDR3-1333 or DDR2-1066/800 memories and pair up with SiS969 Southbridge. The discrete SiS665 chipset will appear in Q4 without the SiS Mirage 4 integrated graphics core.

On the AMD front, SiS 772 will appear in Q3 2007 supporting AMD AM2+/AM3 Stars processors, HyperTransport 3.0, Hyper Streaming Technology, SiS Mirage 4 graphics, SiS Advance Real Video Technology, PCi-Express x16 link and will pair up with SiS969 Southbridge. The discrete version is called SiS757 without the Mirage 4 graphics. The SiS969 Southbridge supports 10 USB 2.0 ports, 2 PATA, 4 SATA2 ports, RAID 0/1/5/JBOD/0+1, 4 PCIe x1, GbE, HD Audio. Mirage 4 features DX10 and OpenGL 2.0, Shader Model 4.0, WDDM 2.x, more textures/resources support.

Further down the roadmap, we saw future IGP chipsets to come with SiS Mirage 5 graphics supporting DX11, PCI Express 2.0 and SATA 3.0. These chipsets will be built on 65nm process.

Intel® Desktop Boards DP965LT, DQ965GF, DG965WH, and DG965OT have been updated to support Intel® CoreTM2 Quad processors. Current Intel® CoreTM2 Quad processors are Q6600 and Q6400. When updating to the latest BIOS, boards previous to these AA# (listed below) will now display a warning message when used with an Intel® CoreTM2 Quad processor, however users will be allowed to continue to run this unsupported configuration. Risk of running this unsupported configuration is expected to be minimal.

AA# for Intel® Desktop boards that now support Intel® CoreTM2 Quad processor

DP965LT (Lemont) -207 or later
DQ965GF (Guardfish) -401 or later
DG965WH (Westchester) -305 or later
DG965OT (Stoughton) -204 or later

SiS unveiled its latest chipsets of the SiS671 series and the SiS771 chipsets ready for Windows Vista. The SiS671 series and the SiS771 chipsets are designed for Intel and AMD platforms respectively.

SiS provides a full line of chipsets supporting Windows Vista. To process a large volume of data, Windows Vista basically requires hardware support 800MHz CPU, 512MB memory, and DirectX9-support graphics processor. If you’d like to have a more efficient and advanced operating performance, Windows Vista needs hardware equipments of a 1GHz CPU, 1GB memory, 128MB graphics memory, and Aero graphics interface.

SiS chipsets for Windows Vista can be adopted in desktop PCs and notebook PC, and are compatible with both Intel and AMD platforms. For desktop solution, SiS provides the SiS671, the SiS671FX, and the SiS671DX for Intel platform. The SiS771 chipset, on the other hand, is for AMD platform. As for mobile solution, the SiSM771 chipset is company's best choice for AMD platform.

NVIDIA today announced new additions to the Company's family of NVIDIA nForce Professional core-logic solutions designed to offer enterprise customers a high-performance, scalable platform solution for professional servers and workstations. To date, NVIDIA nForce Professional MCPs have been selected to power a variety of server and workstation platforms from leading companies such as HP, IBM, Sun, Fujitsu-Siemens.