ULi Electronics has begun volume shipments of its PCIe-enabled M1573 southbridge to motherboard makers, according to company sources. The M1573 will be paired for use with ATI Technologies’ Radeon Xpress 200 series PCIe northbridge.

The M1573 features high-definition (HD) audio and a 2-channel IDE Master controller, as well as a Fast Ethernet MAC layer and PCIe interface. The M1573 also supports four SATA drives. Three OHCI USB 1.1 host controllers and one EHCI host controller support up to eight USB ports.

The M1573 connects to the northbridge via PCIe.

TUL and Gigabyte Technology displayed PCIe motherboards equipped with the M1573 southbridge during the launch of ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 core-logic chipsets last month.

In related news, ULi expects to ship four million chipsets for notebooks this year, the source added.

ALi, the parent company of ULi, also plans to release part of its holdings of ULi’s shares to a designated venture capital firm and reduce its stake in ULi from 58% to 40%, the sources said.

ULi, which is expected to record revenues of NT$2 billion this year, plans to list on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) in the third quarter of 2005.


Source : DigiTimes