Pentium II Processors breaks the 200 MHz barrier<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
PENANG, Malaysia (JP): When I first heard about Intel Corp.'s
\nassembly and testing plant in Penang, Malaysia, I couldn't help
\nfeeling a little bit disappointed. Why in Penang? Why not in
\nBatam or Cikarang or Tangerang in Indonesia?<\/p>\n
However, as Phil Kelly, Dell's vice president for Asia, told
\nme and several other South East Asian journalists at the recent
\nIntel press gathering here, there were three important factors to
\nconsider when choosing where to build a manufacturing plant.
\nFirst, the required infrastructure should already be in place.
\nSecond, logistics should not be any problems. Third, a skilled
\nworkforce should be available. Obviously, like Intel, Dell had
\nfound that Penang met all these three requirements, and therefore
\nit also established its huge factory and headquarters here. It
\nnow serves all its Asian market from here.<\/p>\n
I guess Kelly was just being too tactful to mention two other
\nimportant factors in selecting a suitable location, namely,
\nconsistent and transparent government policies and freedom from a
\nhigh-cost economy. If you've been taking notes of Malaysia's
\ndetermined and consistent move toward its Vision of 2020, it will
\nimmediately become obvious why big players like Intel and Dell
\nhave chosen Penang.<\/p>\n
Our hope is that our policy makers will realize that investors
\nneed at least these five assurances. We have lost out to our
\nneighbors time and time again because of our weaknesses, and it's
\nreally time to address these issues.<\/p>\n
Dust free<\/p>\n
So, up there, among manufacturing plants that belong to
\nMotorola, Dell and Seagate Technology, there is Intel's megaplant
\nfor assembling and testing. Inaugurated by Malaysian Minister of
\nTrade and Industry Rafidah Aziz, the plant showcases Intel's
\nclean room -- a room is supposed to be far cleaner than even a
\nsurgery in a standard Singapore hospital. Well, if you think of
\nthe surgery room in the hospital in Payakumbuh, West Sumatra,
\nwhere I grew up, this one would perhaps be a thousand times
\ncleaner. Such a clean environment is necessary because even a
\ntiny microscopic spec of dust can spoil the microprocessor chip,
\nwhich on the market could cost more than Rp 1 million (US$409).
\nTo make sure they do not bring dust into the ward, operators have
\nto go through a cleaning process where several high powered fans
\nblow all the dust off their special non-linting, antistatic bunny
\nsuit each time they want to go inside.<\/p>\n
Of course, the biggest attraction to visitors to this plant is
\nthe Bunnyman show by our friend Sean Casey. Not only is Sean a
\nvery agile break dancer, he is a technical expert who often comes
\nto Indonesia to help the Glodok people as well as Intel
\nIndonesia's staff keep up with the microprocessor technology.<\/p>\n
Pentium II<\/p>\n
By now you should have heard or read about Intel's latest
\ngeneration of chips, the Pentium II processors. The Penang plant
\ndoes not make these particular chips, but courtesy of Intel
\nIndonesia, I was able to test drive a Pentium II machine and I
\nwill hate the day I return it to them.<\/p>\n
Containing 7.5 million transistors, the chip is built on a
\ntotally new design to reduce costs and provide a wider choice of
\nmotherboard design. Unlike the conventional chips, Pentium II
\ncomes in a plastic and metal cartridge that connects to the
\nmotherboard via what Intel calls Single Edge Contact, or SEC, The
\ncomputing power of this process comes from a combination of the
\ndynamic execution of Pentium Pro and the MMX technology.<\/p>\n
The cache memory is made by third parties. Werner, Intel's
\nmanager for Indonesia, Werner, said this was done to make the
\nchip ready for volume shipment quickly. The internal, or L1
\ncache, has also been increased from 16 KB in Pentium Pro to 64
\nKB.<\/p>\n
As one would expect, the moment the chip hit the street many
\npeople will start testing it to the limit to recreate the drama
\nthat came after the discovery of the famous Pentium processor
\nflaw. But it seems that this time the so-called errata has
\nnothing to worry about and power users are not really deterred by
\nreports that have been circulating.<\/p>\n
Raw speed<\/p>\n
The Pentium II machine I borrowed from Intel was an Acer
\ntower. It came with a 17\" Acer monitor. Windows 95 was already
\ninstalled. The machine had a 266 MHz Pentium II processor, 32 MB
\nof RAM and 3 GB hard drive.<\/p>\n
Installing Photoshop 4.0 took so little time that I was not it
\nwas properly setup. It ran perfectly the first time I loaded it.
\nI was told the program would have run five to six times faster
\nhad I downloaded the MMX patches from Adobe's site and installed
\nit on the hard disk. So, desktop publishers, are you still sure
\nthe Mac is the better tool for getting your job done?<\/p>\n
Marketing manager Thomas was kind enough to send me three CD-
\nROM based, MMX-enabled programs, namely Visual House, The Third
\nDimension and Erase Turnabout. The codes in these programs have
\nbeen optimized to take advantage of the MMX Technology.<\/p>\n
On the accompanying picture you can see the screen of Visual
\nHome Deluxe. It's a program that lets you design your own house,
\nplace furniture and decoration inside the rooms, and visualize
\neverything in three dimensions. Push the mouse cursor a little to
\nthe left, and the room will turn to your right as if you're
\nturning your head to the left. Push the mouse up, and you'll get
\ncloser to the object in front of you.<\/p>\n
A program like this one requires a huge amount of computing
\npower. I first played around with a similar software program
\nabout four years ago. It was called Virtus WalkThrough. I was
\nstill using a 386DX 33 MHz machine, and it was so slow that I
\ngave up testing it before long. With Pentium II, moving from one
\nroom to another in the house I loaded from Visual Home's sample
\ncollection could be very fast. Sometimes it is even too fast that
\nsuddenly I found myself already outside the house and had to
\nretreat through the wall. Whew!<\/p>\n
Final words<\/p>\n
One good thing about the Pentium II chips is that its prices
\nare not as high as what Intel traditionally charges early
\nadopters. In the past, the chips' prices were exceedingly high
\nwhen first introduced and got lower over time. This time the
\nprices are comparable to their predecessors. Reports in some
\nAmerican PC magazines even state that a 233 MHz system could even
\ncost less than a comparably configured 200 MHz Pentium Pro
\nmachine. So, if you need a high performance computer today, don't
\nlook any further. A Pentium II should satisfy even the heavy-
\nweight graphics artist or video editor.<\/p>",
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