PALO ALTO, Calif. — At next month's Hot Chips conference that will convene here the paper on the StrongARM 1500 microprocessor will mark a significant new direction for Intel Corp. Intel will for the first time discuss a specific product it apparently backs. Prashant P. Gandhi, a senior engineer in the StrongARM and Bridges division of Intel's Computer Enhancement Group (Chandler, Ariz.), will detail the StrongARM 1500 as a part aimed at everything from set-top boxes and digital TVs to modem banks and video games.

The chip combines a 32-bit StrongARM 110 core with a DSP-like, dual-issue media processor in a single 60 mm² die that draws less than 2.5 W at 2 V and runs at 300 MHz. Designers say the chip, which incorporates 3.3 million transistors and is built in a 0.28-micron process, can run MPEG-2 MP@ML video decoding and a software modem in parallel.

Sources inside and outside the company suggest what could follow within a few weeks are more details about a family based on as many as three different StrongARM designs with the potential to propel the X86 giant into a whole new position in the embedded world.

Many of the 1500's architectural details have been revealed by Digital's engineering managers at conferences over the past year. What many in the industry have been waiting for, however, is word about Intel's plans to make and sell such StrongARM chips.

"I've told Intel privately and publicly they are scaring off customers in droves because they won't give out details," said Jim Turley, senior analyst at the Microprocessor Report.

An announcement of StrongARM products from Intel could come "in a matter of weeks," according to an Intel spokeswoman. "Intel is very committed to StrongARM and has multiple designs in the works and fully staffed." The company declined further comment on StrongARM.

Dean McCarron, principal of Mercury Research (Scottsdale, Ariz.), said Intel told him in a briefing earlier this year that it is preparing three StrongARM designs from which it would spin various derivative parts. Besides the SA-1500, Digital was also designing a version of StrongARM aimed at networking applications such as routers and switches and targeted to compete with the Intel i960, according to a former StrongARM designer no longer with Digital.

"This is the first time Intel has a product they didn't design — much less a microprocessor — and one over which they have no control of the instruction set," said Turley. "This is a huge emotional issue for them and a different business model."

Intel is currently rolling out a new line of low-end PC processors, the Celeron, with prices that hover around $100. The StrongARM would likely come in at even lower prices and margins. The implications of the low margins are complicated by the reality that, for the immediate future, the StrongARM requires a special process available only at the Hudson, Mass., fab Intel acquired from Digital.

Typically, Intel builds its low-margin parts on its older, fully amortized fabs. "As for the existing StrongARM 110, 1100 and 1500, I don't think Intel can move them from that fab, but any new chips likely would be designed to run on any old Intel fab line," said Turley.

Despite these hurdles, the silicon is in a very late stage and could be ready for volume production by the time the Hot Chips paper is read, according to the former SA-1500 designer. "We finished it up just about the time the group was sold to Intel. Software was running earlier this year."

Intel is late in striking the alliances it may need to sell set-tops to traditional cable-TV service providers. General Instrument snagged a deal last year to supply as many as 10 million digital set-tops based on a MIPS processor to Tele-Communications Inc., and Scientific-Atlanta is said to be in the running for a major order from Time Warner for its Pegasus set-top, based on a Sparc chip.

Acorn Group plc (Cambridge, England), the original developer of the ARM microprocessor architecture and a founding shareholder in ARM Ltd., could yet have a role to play in nursing the Intel StrongARM through its own licensing activity. In May of this year, Acorn demonstrated its "Active" set-top box design, based on a 300-MHz StrongARM SA-1500. The box had been made using samples obtained from Digital, prior to the Intel acquisition, and caused a stir with its ability to decode twin MPEG-2 streams in software.

Ben Allen, Acorn marketing manager for broadcast digital television, said that Acorn, which has recently undergone extensive management changes, had changed its strategy for its Gallileo embedded operating system. "Instead of producing a full operating system we're producing a quality-of-service kernel which we will interface to other operating systems," he said.

Allen said that Acorn planned to announce partnerships with leading RTOS vendors around the Gallileo kernel but that Acorn had to wait on a StrongARM announcement from Intel.