Apr. 14, 2001

Taiwan Chipmaker VIA Technology plans to put a 1.2 GigaHertz Microprocessor into production in early 22 with first samples to be available by the end of this year, according to local reports.

VIA is a world-leading manufacturer of core logic chipsets. Before the first appearance of the 1.GHz-class processor, the company will first present its 1GHz Ezra microprocessor mid 2001.

Ezra is built on the Samuel family's Socket 37 architecture and works with 128 KB-class L2 cache memory chips and 64KB-class L1 cache memory chips.

Via expects Ezra to be more costly than its 733 MHz Samuel II processor.
The 1.2 GHz processor to come next year has no name yet. It will come with 128 KB of L1 cache memory and 256 KB of L2 cache memory and will be manufactured with 0.13-micron process technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

VIA's 1 GHz and 1.2GHz processors will both be targeted to the low-priced computer market despite their super-fast speeds. Taiwan market analysts estimate that the two processors will be priced less than the GigHertz - class microprocessors of Intel and AMD.