kap - <In the past, Intel's saving grace was superior manufacturing (process technologies). They could just out produce the clones, leap to new processes sooner, and they could have bigger margins on the same chips at the same price (but they made up for this, by charging customers far more). But guess what -- that has evaporated too.>
Intel has to produce in such huge volumes that they can't move to newer processes as fast as the more agile cloners. They aren't going to copper or SOI for years (maybe 2002). PowerPC's (IBM and Motorola) are already making the leap, and some other foundries are soon to follow -- BEFORE Intel. All the clone chip makers have allied with other foundries (places where they manufacture chips) -- and those foundries are getting better at catching up, and may pass Intel -- and they will be making chips for x86-Cloners. Intel's size, and manufacturing requirements (demand) is hurting them -- cloners can afford lower yields, and more experimental processes, because their demands are lower. So even in process, Intel's one real competitive advantage, they may be falling behind. This could be the last nail in the coffin.>
Look at this statement kap. Because Intel is successful, it's killing them. Yeah, Intel isn't going to implement novel, immature processes and forsake yields. That would be extremely irresponsible and stupid, and if you don't see that, I can't help you or the author of this piece. Intel has never had a penchant to implement immature process technology.
I submit, if you read the IEEE paper on P858, as Watsonyouth obviously has, you'd see that Intel is hardly falling behind. Intel's device engineering will compete with anybody's.
Intel will let the novel technologies mature, have them running in pilots, and implement them when the manufacturing processes and tools are robust enough.
See ya on the other side of 1GHz.
PB |
