With the launch of Direct Rambus DRAM and Intel Corp.'s Camino chip set on hold, PC manufacturers are looking for alternatives that include flavors of conventional SDRAM. Though its platform was in the works long before the Rambus delay, IBM's PC division this week threw support to PC133 SDRAM by designing it into its new line of 300PL desktop computers, which also use Taipei-based Via's latest Apollo Pro133/4X AGP chipset.

According to sources, IBM did not end the relationship there, but licensed the device from Via and moved to have its Fishkill, N.Y.-based Microelectronics division begin to manufacture the chip set for captive use. Via said it's also possible that IBM will serve as a second source for the new Apollo Pro 133, joining Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which already makes the device.

Jonathan Chang, Via's vice president of operations and sales, acknowledged the company is negotiating with IBM as a foundry for certain, unspecified chip sets. "We have a test chipset at IBM right now," Chang said, declining to confirm whether IBM has licensed Via's technology outright for captive use.

Repeated calls to IBM were not returned.

However, sources said the deal gives IBM an assured supply of the 4X AGP chipset version, while opening a wider market for Via until Intel fields a competing PC133-enabled chipset sometime in the first half of 2000.

Danny Lam, an analyst with Fisher-Holstein Inc. in Wilmington, Del., said the Via-IBM chip set deal will give greater credibility to Via's entire PC133-enabled product line. "PC OEMs that were locked into Intel previously will hesitate less now to adopt the Via PC133 chipset," he said.

Intel last week also handed Via another major advantage by introducing Pentium III microprocessors with a 133-MHz frontside bus (FSB). The introduction should clear the air surrounding the legal problems Via encountered this summer when Intel accused it of violating licensing terms by designing its own 133-MHz FSB to interface with Intel processors.

Now that Intel has released its higher-speed bus, Via needs only to connect its PC133 memory bus and controller with Intel's 133-MHz processor interface, analysts said.