- Intel's new Pentium III Xeon processors
will put high-end servers into the supercomputer category, triggering export
restraints and creating problems for U.S. server makers looking to sell
the systems overseas.
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- And next year, Intel's 800-MHz Pentium
III will throw desktop PCs into the supercomputer control category, as
well.
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- Executives representing major U.S. OEMs
gathered in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, warning that unilateral
U.S. export controls put domestic PC makers at a competitive disadvantage
against foreign rivals that are able to sell leading-edge Intel-based PCs
without constraint. U.S. companies must seek export licenses to sell supercomputer-rated
PCs abroad, causing costly paperwork and delays foreign competitors don't
face.
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- The blinding speed of PC technology has
now exceeded the control limit of 2,000 million theoretical operations
per second (MTOPS) for requiring export licenses to certain countries,
including China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and many states of the former
Soviet Union. MTOPS is a unique government criterion with which to define
control limits. All multiprocessor Pentium III Xeon servers will exceed
this threshold, according to Dan Hoydysh, director of government affairs
for Unisys, in Blue Bell, Pa.
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- Washington, D.C.-based Information Technology
Industry Council (ITI), which represents U.S. PC makers, is lobbying Congress
and the Clinton administration to raise the control threshold to above
12,000 MTOPS.
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- The sheer volume of PC export applications
"will swamp the government [export-control office], causing the system
to collapse," Hoydysh said. He estimated U.S. export-control authorities
last year processed about 300 supercomputer license applications, but added
Pentium III requests could number in the tens of thousands.
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- The 500-MHz Pentium III processor is
rated at less than 2,000 MTOPS, but Hoydysh said the 800-MHz version slated
for release early next year will exceed the control threshold.
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- "That means every desktop PC with
this processor is subject to export controls," he said.
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- Moreover, multiprocessor versions of
the 800-MHz Pentium III chip would reach 12,000 MTOPS, extending export
curbs on servers to the rest of the world except for Western and allied
nations, Hoydysh said.
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- Congress set the 2,000-MTOPS limit years
ago, when only mainframe supercomputers were at this level. "But the
PC industry has advanced so rapidly, we've crashed right through the limit
and will continue to move higher every year," said Marshall Phelps,
vice president of licensing and intellectual property at IBM. "Congress
simply doesn't realize how fast technology changes."
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- "Today's laptop is yesterday's supercomputer,"
Hoydysh added, noting a 250-MHz Pentium II notebook has the same MTOPS
rating as the Cray XMP2 supercomputer of only a few years ago.
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- Peter Pitsch, communications policy director
at Intel, in Santa Clara, Calif., warned as high-speed processors move
into new, non-PC applications, a bevy of consumer electronics products
may suddenly be thrown under supercomputer export-control limits.
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- Rhett Dawson, president of ITI, said
OEMs have been slapped in the last month with an added burden of supplying
end-user certification for many computers shipped to China. Export-control
authorities added the requirement to ensure Chinese buyers were civilian
customers and not military operations. Again, foreign competitors generally
have no such restraint, making their sales to China less onerous.
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- http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990222S0011
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