Rising k6 prices are consistent with AMD allocating more wafers to K7 production.
From jc-news.com
99/06/13, 11:25pm - Awwww, and you thought I'd forget! (actually, I thought I'd forget!) Er....damn, what was I about to say. Um, oh yes! A rather bright fellow I know who has been following AMD quite closely at least since the K6-2 came out (and, well, quite a bit before this) has the following to say regarding the rumours of AMD sitting on massive amounts of K6-2 parts (btw, I don't yet have permission to show the really telling graph he alludes to in his speakage):
"K6-2 spot prices are rising slightly for 350, 400, and 450-MHz speed grades. The other K6-x chips have slowed/stopped their price declines except for the 380. The last time chip prices increased like this was before Thanksgiving when the new CXT-core wafers were exiting the production line with their bimodal bin split distribution and the supplies of K6-2s faster than 333-MHz dwindled at the resellers. These price increases don't support the excess inventory rumor that Sharkey has so loudly touted.
These subtle price increases are persisting and this isn't some one-day event. The price increase started last Sat-Mon and as you can see from the attached graph it is an anomaly to the normally declining price curves. These increases are starting to be significant. The average (average of the first Pricewatch web page prices) price of the K6-2/450 has increased by $7.40 since 6-05.
The price increase in November was caused by a production problem.
In late Feb, the price of the K6-2/400 surged but the supplies should have been improving because the "fix" was in. I think that OEMs (read IBM and Compaq) were sucking up almost all of the new production of the fast "fixed" chips.
Note that late in March, the K6-2/333s edged up a bit. I think that this may have been due to an inventory dump to a company like e-Machines that depleted the supply available to the resellers. Clearly this wasn't a production-related increase.
What I'm trying to say here is it is a fact that some of the resellers on Pricewatch are posting higher prices for AMD's parts, but the cause of these increases is speculative at this time. Is it due to another production problem or have they been extremely successful selling all of their parts to big OEMs for their boxes, thereby, keeping them off the spot market? Either way, it does suggest a supply tightening."
Of course, I should also mention that I spoke to one of the standard AMD public relations guys, who agreed that "the rumour is crap". Just figured I might want to spread some salt on the rumour slugs. ;)
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