Made-in-China microchips will be sold overseas for the first time after leading Chinese and US computer firms formed a new alliance.
Chinese embedded central processing unit (CPU) firm Arca Technology has formed the alliance with the US's biggest network computer (NC) maker Wyse Technology to give it access to the global market.
Arca Technology, the first Chinese company to design chips for NCs, will provide its Arca 2 processors to Wyse to be used in the latter's products sold worldwide.
"This cooperation with Wyse will let us enter the world's CPU market, which is unprecedented for a Chinese chip company," said Li Delei, chairman and president of Arca.
The Arca 2 chip is the fastest embedded processor in China. It has a clock speed of 400 megahertz and a power consumption of 0.4 watts.
John Stringer, president and chief executive of Wyse, said the low power consumption was biggest attraction of Arca processors.
"The market requires NCs to be thinner, thinner and thinner, and the alliance with Arca will help us in that direction," said the chief of the world's largest NC maker.
A network computer only has devices like a monitor, keyboard and mouse and relies servers for storage and software. It costs much less than a personal computer and is also safer.
The Arca 2 chips will be used on all Wyse 1000 NCs and run on Wyse's self-developed Blazers operating system.
The computers will be released worldwide simultaneously, but the companies have not decided the launch date.
The two companies will also work on new products in the Arca processor family.
The Chinese chip designer will release Arca 3 this year, but Li Delei did not disclose technical details or the release date.
The firms also would not say how many processors will be included in the deal. But according to Li Delei, the Wyse 1000 model accounts for about one third of the US company's total shipments of network computers.
Wyse supplies 55 percent of all network computers in the US market and 42 percent of the world's total.
According to Y. S. Fu, general manager of Taiwan Wyse Technology, 1.3 million NCs were shipped worldwide last year.
The US-headquartered company is also moving about 60 percent of its production capacity in Taiwan Province to Zhangjiagang of Jiangsu Province.
Government departments in China are also emerging as network computer buyers.
Fan Boyuan, vice-mayor of Beijing, said the Chinese capital will order more network computers and promote their use in schools.
(China Daily February 13, 2004)
