Posted on Tuesday, April 11 2006 @ 21:05 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Investment bank Friedman Billings, Ramsey Group claims Intel will soon stop using third-party chipsets, or at the very least significantly reduce its dependency on other companies' products.
According to EETimes, the institution has downgraded ATI as a result. The graphics chips maker has been one of the key beneficiaries of Intel's third-party chipset purchasing programme. FBRG reduced ATI to "market perform" from "outperform".
In a report to its clients, FBRG suggests Intel is shifting production of products not related to PCs out to third-party producers. That's freeing up production capacity for its own chipsets.
In August 2005, Intel responded to claims that it was pulling out of the entry-level chipset market by stating it was focusing its available production capacity on higher-margin parts. Soon after, Intel's motherboard division began shipping its first product based on a third-party chipset, in this case an ATI part.
More info at
The Register Hardware.
