Looking to break into the end-user market for add-in graphics boards, Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SIS) plans to release an upgraded version of its Xabre graphics chip in July, according to a company executive.

Called Xabre 2, the updated chip is expected to make its first public appearance at the Computex exhibition to be held in Taipei during June, said Larry Lee, channel sales director for corporate sales at SIS.

SIS, in Hsinchu, Taiwan, has seen some success with its line of Xabre graphics chips, but the company has only generated limited interest among end users looking to buy add-in graphics cards, Lee said. With Xabre 2, SIS hopes to change all that and generate more end-user interest, he said.

Engineering samples of the chip will be distributed to board makers starting from June and mass production of the chip should begin in July, with boards appearing for sale shortly thereafter, Lee said. Pricing information was not available.

With more than 80 million transistors, the Xabre 2 will include support for Direct X 9 and offer a 350MHz core clock speed and a 500MHz memory clock speed, Lee said. The Xabre 600, currently the top of SIS's graphics chip line, supports DirectX 8.1 and has a 300MHz core clock speed and a 300MHz memory clock speed.

Breaking away from its vertically integrated manufacturing model, SIS will contract production of the Xabre 2, which will be made using a 0.13-micron process, to United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), Lee said. Handing production of the Xabre 2 to UMC will mean that manufacturing costs for the chips are likely to be lower than if SIS had sought to produce the chip on its own, he said.

SIS has struggled in the past with its own chip manufacturing operations and has had difficulty getting high yield rates for many of its products. The company recently cancelled plans to build a 300-millimeter chip manufacturing plant and is considering selling its existing 200-millimeter plant