Pentium III Systems Subject To Export Control

( 2/22/99; 2:00 PM EST)
By Jack Robertson , Semiconductor Business News

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.

And next year, Intel's 800-MHz Pentium III will throw desktop PCs into the supercomputer control category, as well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"That means every desktop PC with this processor is subject to export controls," he said.

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.

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."

"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.

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.

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.

© 1998 CMP Media, Inc.