NEC Corp’s systems sales division is to start selling Sun Microsystems Inc workstations in addition to the NEC 4800 series of MIPS Technologies Inc R-series-based systems. However NEC’s semiconductor division continues to emphasise its commitment to the MIPS VR4400 chip it licenses from Silicon Graphics Inc and sees as one of five key element of its Multimedia strategy. Other key elements include: compression – decompression signal processors based on the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards; a one-chip decoder is to be commercially available by the end of this year; the home-grown V800 series of microprocessors, which NEC sees as contributing to the handling of human interfaces; a CD-ROM controller which is already shipping samepsl; and the recently announced NEASanta CruzT Asynchronous Transfer Mode-to-local network controller chip, and an Ethernet controller being developed in conjunction with National Semiconductor Corp. NEC sees the MIPS RISC continuing to increase in world market share as it did between 1991 and 1992; its own plans include expanding its current series of 48 series workstations based on the VR4400, including the 80MHz EWS 4800/310 (48Lite) and the 4800/330 and 4800/360AD desktop machines using 132MHz and 150MHz VR4400s, and server models such as the UP 4800/680. In addition last year US subsidiary NEC Technologies announced an Express RISC server which includes two VR4400MC chips, and an image RISCstation personal computer for use with Windows NT; this design has also been licensed to Acer Inc of Taiwan and NeTpower Inc of the US for use in Windows NT-use personal computers. NEC says a 200MHz version of the VR4400 will be ready for sample shipments this month, and the T5 being developed by Silicon Graphics with assistance from NEC engineers will be completed in summer this year. Developments in the V800 series, a chip which NEC compares with the Hobbit and ARM chips used in products such as the Newton, include a 50MHz V810 ready for sample shipment in June and a 100MHz successor chip named Velvet which will be ready for volume production in 1995. A prototype of a portable information processor based on a V805 microprocessor was demonstrated running the Excel spreadsheet.
