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Intel clone chip targets cheap PCs

Integrated Device Technology's IDT WinChip C6 and C6+ processors will compete with the Pentium chip in the sub-$1,000 market.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
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Integrated Device Technology (IDTI) has unveiled a microprocessor that will compete with Intel's Pentium processors in the low-cost PC market, making IDT the latest company to enter the Intel chip clone market.

IDT chips are targeted at the low-cost, sub-$1,000 PC market, which is burgeoning and therfore challenging chip king Intel to more aggressively address this area with new products and pricing.

IDT's chip, called the IDT WinChip C6 processor, was designed by Centaur Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of IDT. The C6 is compatible with Pentium processors and runs at 240 MHz. It has begun shipping commerically, according Glenn Henry, president of Centaur.

The WinChip C6 is also geared toward the sub-$2,000 mobile PC product categories.

Centaur's Henry also unveiled today the C6+, which is slated for commerical shipments in the first half of 1998. The C6+ adds MMX-compatible technology and "floating point" improvements for scientific and engineering applications.

The C6 + will hit speeds of 300 MHz and above, bringing high-performance to the sub-$1,000 segement of the PC market in 1998.

Intel dominates the world PC market with its microprocessors, which are the brain chips of PCs, but it has two main competitors, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)and Cyrix (CYRX), which sell clones of its microprocessors.

The IDT WinChip C6 is currently available at speeds of 180 MHz and 200 MHz. IDT expects to start sampling the IDT WinChip C6 processor at 225 MHz and 240 MHz in November 1997. The IDT WinChip C6 has a suggested price of $90 for the 180 MHz version and $135 for the 200 MHz version in 1,000 unit quantities.

Reuters contributed to this story.