National Semiconductor Touts ‘PC on Chip’

National Semiconductor Corp. plans today to announce that it is able to combine the functions of most of the chips used in personal computers onto a single chip, which could bring PC prices under $500 and lead to a host of new computing devices. National, the country’s fourth-largest chip maker, said the device will replace a dozen or more separate chips typically found in PCs and combine technologies it has developed and purchased in recent years. In November, Santa Clara, Calif.-based National completed a $500-million merger with Cyrix Corp., a maker of Intel Corp.-compatible microprocessors, giving it an arsenal of products to create a PC with one chip, excluding system memory. National Chief Executive Brian Halla will discuss plans for the new chip at a semiconductor industry conference in Phoenix today. He said the company will have the first working version of its chip by year-end and can produce it in volume by June 1999. The company believes the new chip will lead to even lower-cost PCs and other “information appliances.” Halla predicted PC prices could fall to $400 to $500 with National’s new chips.