DARBES, All - DLJ
thank you for the news. Below is a review from DLJ.
Regards
-Albert
07:27am EDT 21-Oct-97 DLJ Securities (Mark Hassenberg) MOLX AMAT SEG BAY ASND
TECHNOLOGY: Tech Notes. (Part 2 of 2)
DLJ ****** DONALDSON, LUFKIN & JENRETTE ****** DLJ
TECHNOLOGY
Tech Notes. (Part 2 of 2)
Krishna Shankar (415) 249-2231, Semiconductors:
o Intel: The Intel third quarter results highlight the pricing pressures
in the processor market as the $1000 and $1500 PC price points gain
momentum and put pressure on Intel's blended ASPs. We estimate that Intel's
blended ASP trended from $247 in the second quarter to approximately $225
in the third quarter and will trend down further to a range of $200 to $210
in the fourth quarter. While processor unit shipments were a record for
the third quarter, the pressure on ASPs will result in revenues and
earnings being only "slightly up" in the fourth quarter. We believe that
Intel's margins and ASP trends could potentially stabilize and earnings
could accelerate in the second half of 1998 as the company completes the
transition to the Pentium II, converts to more efficient 0.25 micron
manufacturing from 0.35 micron technology now, and derives a higher portion
of its processor profits from the lucrative high margin server,
workstation, and high end power desktop PC market.
o AMD (AMD: $28.00)#++: The company previewed future advanced versions
of the K6 processor such as K6/3-D enhanced processor and also the K6+/3-D
processor for high end applications. The K6/3D adds some advanced 3-D
oriented floating point type instructions to the x86 instructions; while
the K6+ enhances the architecture to much higher performance levels by
adding 256Kbytes of Level 2 cache on the processor. Even with the L2 cache
addition, the K6 processor on 0.25 micron technology will swell from
approximately 80mm2 for the K6/3-D to 130 mm2 for the K6+/3-D processor
with on board L2 cache. If AMD can execute well on its manufacturing ramp,
we believe that the company's product roadmap will allow the company to
continue competing with Intel in the mid-range to high-end performance
levels through 1998. Companies such as AMD, Cyrix/NSM (NSM: $36.06)#
(CYRX: $29.62)*, IDTI/Centaur (IDTI :$12.63) are adding new proprietary
instructions to the x86 architecture to enhance 3-D performance. Intel,
meanwhile, has NOT yet announced its own 3D and floating point oriented
MMX2 instruction set. While all these instructions are accessible through
the Microsoft Direct 3D API and Open GL 3D interface, the software
developers are in effect facing a more fragmented host platform market. It
remains to be seen whether Microsoft can corral all these different x86
instructions and make them plug-and-play seamlessly with Windows98 and also
with future third party software applications. |
