Tuesday September 2 3:00 PM EDT

Samsung Starts Alpha Chip Production

SEOUL - South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co said today it has begun 
producing Alpha microprocessors developed in an alliance with Digital 
Equipment.

The 533-megahertz central processing unit will operate on workstations and 
servers with Microsoft Windows NT and Unix systems, a Samsung statement 
said.

It also said the chip would embody functions such as 3D graphics, 
computer-aided design, moving pictures and virtual reality to capture the 
visual computing market.

The company plans to begin mass-producing the 600-megahertz chips by the 
end of this year and chips for personal computers by the first quarter of 
next year, the statement said.

Samsung plans to expand production to one million units in 1999 from 4,000 
this year and 110,000 next year, it said.

Samsung Electronics is the world's leading semiconductor maker and the 
flagship unit of the Samsung Group.

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