"There are remaining issues under investigation by the Commission," said William Baer, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, in announcing a proposed settlement today (March 8). Baer did not elaborate, but agency and industry sources have said the FTC was looking beyond the general-purpose microprocessor market to examine Intel's growing dominance of the chip set market.

Sources close to the FTC investigation said that while the subject of core logic would not come up in the suspended hearing that was scheduled to start Tuesday, it could be the subject of a separate investigation. "I do believe that subject will be investigated by someone else," said an industry source close to the investigation. Speaking before today's announcement, the source said "there might be something else brewing."

Beyond Baer's statement concerning "remaining issues" under investigation, the FTC said it could not comment.

Administrative Law Judge James Timony moved last week to keep the FTC's antitrust case zeroed in on the general-purpose CPU market when he excluded evidence introduced by FTC lawyers concerning Intel's actions in the chip set market.

The proposed settlement offered today by Intel and government attorneys now goes to the full, four-member Commission. A decision was expected in several days, the FTC said.

Leveraging success
Some observers said they expected Intel to leverage its strength in the general-purpose microprocessor market — the narrow focus of the FTC's case against the company — into the markets for chips sets and the graphics controllers. Intel resisted calls to license its chip set technology until last September, when it reversed its position on licensing its P6 (Pentium II) bus. Among companies to receive Pentium II bus licenses are Via Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems of Taiwan.

The expanded licensing comes as Intel is expected to launch later this year multiple chip sets that integrate its i740 graphics controller.