Intel takes chip speed to 1Ghz

Intel has demonstrated its fastest processor yet, running at speeds of up to 1.5Ghz, or 1.5 billion clock cycles per session.

Albert Yu, the chip giant's senior vice president, unveiled the 32bit chip - codenamed Willamette - at Intel's developer's forum in Palm Springs yesterday.

Yu also demonstrated the first production-level Pentium III processor-based system running at 1Ghz which will go to volume production in the second half of this year.

"This will be the biggest Intel architecture year ever," said Yu.

A 1Ghz version of Willamette, along with the company's 64bit Itanium chip, will also be launched in the second half of 2000.

Intel also announced plans to launch a Xeon version of Willamette, codenamed Foster, but no timeframe was given.

He said Intel's low-level Celeron processor will hit speeds of 700Mhz by the end of the year and announced a new addition to the line codenamed Timna which will also launch in the second half of the year.

"Timna is the first smart integration memory chip," said Yu. "We take the motherboard and integrate functions such as graphics, cache memory and memory controllers. The chip is designed for sub-$600 PCs and is designed to deliver performance features and minimise system costs."

Intel declined to give any speed predictions for Timna.