Rise Eyes Low-Cost Chip Arena

Rise Technology Co. hopes to fill the gap in the PC-processor market left by National Semiconductor Corp.'s recent decision to sell its Cyrix Corp. subsidiary.

The start-up chip company, based here, recently unveiled its 1999 product plans for the low-cost desktop and notebook markets.

Joe Salvador, Rise's senior product marketing manager, said the company views the sub-$600 desktop market as the fastest-growing segment of the PC industry. Cyrix dominated that area with its low-cost chips, he said.

"If you look at the highest growth segment and the No. 1 company serving that segment exiting the business, the opportunity for Rise is tremendous," he said.

The company's current mP6 chip, with a 266 performance rating and a 200MHz core, is a little behind the curve in the desktop market, he said. But Rise said it plans this year to boost the mP6's performance to 366 by the third quarter and to 433 in the fourth quarter. Rise markets its CPUs with performance ratings instead of megahertz, as does Cyrix.

The company declined to disclose pricing but said its pricing is competitive with Cyrix's.

For the sub-$1,000 notebook market, Rise said it plans to have in volume production 333 and 366 mP6 chips in the third quarter and the mP6II up to 466 in the fourth quarter. The mP6II includes 256 Kbytes of on-chip Level 2 cache.

Salvador said Rise eventually will transition its entire product line to the advanced 0.18-micron process, which will help it produce smaller, faster and cooler chips.

Rise has the technology and business model to succeed where Cyrix did not, said Salvador. "We think we have a better cost structure and a better product," he said.

Although the company has been criticized for its lack of fabs, Rise does not have the burden of factory costs, he said. However, with its foundry partner it has access to manufacturing technology.

"Our unique business model, which entails a close relationship with a third-party foundry and strong partnerships with chipset and Taiwan motherboard manufacturers, enables us to drive leading-edge production processes through our internal process development team," said Rise's Chairman and Chief Executive David Lin.

Rise still is working to develop its channel, but the company has heard a lot of interest from the channel, Salvador said.

"With Cyrix leaving, we've just been sort of overwhelmed with people calling us and hoping we have an alternative," he said.

John Howland, owner of Specialty Tech, a Lake Forest, Calif.-based VAR, said he is one of the few Rise resellers. Specialty Tech is marketing Rise chips for multimedia, home and schools, he said.

"It's a nice little CPU," he said. "It's really good for multimedia, compared with Cyrix."

Rise's prices also are a good selling point, Howland said. "If someone's buying 20 network systems, you can say you can buy 21 for the same price if we go with this [Rise] CPU," he said.

But whether Rise will succeed remains to be seen. Analysts have said National's decision to drop out of the PC-processor market shows how difficult it is to survive in that business, where prices have been plummeting.

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