However, this also meant that building the most basic system, with a single processor, required both chips and considerable wiring between them, driving up costs.

The four countries have stated that their equipment orders specifically require the use of Intel chips or other chips that offer the same speed.

For that reason, the F.D.A. requires chips made with olestra to carry a label warning that the product may cause "abdominal cramping and loose stools."

Only the separate IO space, interrupts and DMA required additional chips to decode the processor pin signals.

Should you be pleb enough to require chips with breakfast, remember to ask for fries.

But Sandisk's system so far requires several chips, meaning that it does not yet have the potential data-storage and cost-saving advantages of Intel's single-chip approach.

And that, he said, will "create the image of Scotland as a hotbed of activity" in the design of single units performing functions that once required several different chips.

The proposal would require chips because they are more likely to survive a crash.

Battery-powered portable radios that handle digital tuning will take longer to come to market, Mr. Struble said, because they require low-power chips that are still in development.

However, both processors required external chips to implement a working system, raising total system cost, and making it impossible to economically computerize appliances.