Facing fiercer competition, VIA Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) both plan to launch new graphics cores in the second quarter. The integrated chipset market has become an intensely contested arena as Intel?s 845G will hit the market in April and graphics chip designers like ATI Technologies and Nvidia also decided to launch their core logic chipsets soon. Read More After it acquired S3, VIA has used the graphics chip designer?s Savage core as standard equipment for its integrated chipsets. VIA also sells Savage cores as independent graphics chips to its notebook clients. However, the Savage products have not really left a strong impression on the markets. However, now VIA has decided to strengthen its market recognition with its more advanced specifications. According to sources, VIA is set to introduce a new graphics core, codenamed ?Zoetrope,? in the second quarter. The Zoetrope line will be manufactured using 0.15-micron processing and will be designed in the dual-pipe structure, instead of the old single-pipe standard. The Zoetrope core is expected to be first built into VIA?s DDR333, P4-based chipset P4M333, which is scheduled to hit the market in the second half of 2002, and then in the company?s Athlon-based chipset KM333. VIA also plans to roll out a new graphics chip (codenamed Columbia) in the first half of 2003. SiS has been sending samples of its new graphics chip SiS330 lately, which the company has scheduled to launch in the second quarter. Given that SiS will introduce its P4-based chipset SiS660 and Athlon-based SiS760 in the third and fourth quarters, respectively, the two chipset lines are very likely to be the first products using the new graphics core, apart from adopting the company?s latest 962 south bridge chip. SiS said that it will not rule out the possibility. Considering the greatly enhanced performance of the SiS330, which is about the same as that of the current mainstream product, Nvidia?s GeForce2, SiS said that it will incorporate the graphics core into its new integrated chipsets, provided that customer response is good and overall production costs are reasonable. This year, Intel is almost certain to reign in the OEM sector of the P4 chipset market with its well-performing 845G. VIA and SiS, impeded by the licensing problem and product positioning, respectively, will only be able to gain part of the low-end market. For the two chipset designers, the Athlon-platform market will be the main battlefield in 2002. Source: DigiTimes.Com