"Intel has made repeated claims both in the media and in discussions with customers that we are not licensed to sell products that are compatible with the Intel Pentium 4," said Richard Brown, director of marketing at Via Technologies. "We disagree with these and other scare tactics that Intel is employing in the PC industry for marketing purposes.

"Intel should deal with facts openly and communicate through official press releases rather than threatening customers and sowing seeds of doubt in the marketplace," Brown added.

An Intel spokesman said the company has not stepped up its efforts to stop Via's new chip set, and it has consistently said only three companies have been licensed to use Pentium 4 bus technology. "Via is not licensed to use the necessary technologies for the Pentium 4," the Intel spokesman told SBN. "We have said Via is licensed for Pentium 3 technologies."

To date, Intel has licensed its Pentium 4 technology to three chip set makers--ATI Technologies Inc., Silicon Integrated Systems Inc. (SiS), and Acer Laboratories Inc. (ALi).

Intel will not discuss its legal strategy or make any predictions about what actions might be taken in this dispute, the spokesman said. "They're putting words in our mouth," he added.

Last week, Via officially launched its double-data-rate SDRAM chip set for PCs that use Intel's Pentium 4 bus and microprocessor. The dispute between Via and Intel over licensing rights to the bus has caused Taiwan's major motherboard makers to publicly say they will not use the P4X266 in products until the issue is resolved (see Aug. 15 story).

Via initially unveiled its P4X266 at Taiwan's Computex trade show in Taipei during in early June. At the time, the chip set supplier insisted that an older Intel cross-licensing agreement brokered by S3 Graphics--now a Via subsidiary--was applicable to future Intel buses. Intel in Santa Clara, Calif., disagrees but has not clearly stated what action it will take against Via when the product appears on the market.

Recently, Intel chief executive officer Craig Barrett said any company introducing a product compatible with or using Intel's intellectual property should be "very careful" if it doesn't have a license.

Via said it is pushing ahead with its marketing of the DDR chip set for Pentium 4-based PCs despite the potential of legal action by Intel. Via said there is no official claim of infringement against its Apollo P4X266 product, and the company today stated that it has begun to "outreach to existing and potential customers to expand upon the already widespread distribution of this revolutionary chip set."

One key point of friction is Via's support of DDR synchronous DRAMs, which are competing with the Intel-backed Rambus Inc. architecture. Via claimed that customers are "adopting" the Apollo P4X266 because it boosts performance of Intel's Pentium 4 processor by as much as 15% by allowing the central processing unit to take advantage of new low-cost memory chips that are faster than mainstream SDRAMs.

"Cost and speed are two of the biggest factors that will influence the success of upcoming systems based on the new Pentium 4," Brown said. "Via has created a solution that addresses these points head on and in a way that Intel has not been able to," he added, referring to Intel's public position of supporting Rambus DRAMs over DDR chips.

Via today said it was stepping up its distribution of the Apollo P4X26 chip set despite Intel's unofficial threats.