Richard -
TI announced (actually pre-announced) a 0.25 micron process with an leffective 0.18 micron.
Let me translate. The minimum printed/etched feature size is 0.25 microns which is the length of the smallest silicon gate device that they can print with their anticipated photolithography equipment. For ease of understanding, just assume this is "PRINTED" as in a printing press.
The gate forms the active or control terminal of an MOS (Metal-Oxide-Silicon) transistor. The other two terminals are the source and drain which are defined adjacent to the gate, one on either side of the polysilicon gate (again, about 0.25 microns in length). The source and drain are in the silicon substrate and are "doped" with arsenic (for an n-channel MOS transistor) or boron (for a p-channel transistor). The use of both p and n channel MOS transistors is referred to as "Complimentary" MOS or CMOS .
During this doping process, the arsenic diffuses under the gate a few tenths of a micron, reducing the 0.25 micron physical gate length to an effective 0.18 micron length.
This may be boring you, so let me conclude --
During the 1970's Intel was concerned with being wiped out by Texas Instruments. That was 20 years ago, and it never happened. Intel was only a few 100 million dollar company pushing micrprocessors while TI was heavily into discreet (i.e., TTL) logic and was an order of magnitude larger that Intel at that time. Intel created well (the microprocessorm the EPROM, etc.). TI lived off its heritage,
TI did not wipe out Intel then and they cannot now, being about 1/2 the size of Intel in 1996. The reasons are many.
First - Intel controls the microprocessor market with about 80% of this. Their products are proprietary. The Pentium and Pentium Pro are made by Intel ONLY and are not licensed to anyone at this time. These chips, as you know, are used in 9 out of 10 PCs manufactured today. Intel should produce about 45 MILLION of these this year.
TI has two major thrusts in semiconductors (I will ignore their Military Instrumentation market). One is DRAMS and the other is Disgital Signal Processors,or DSPs. For several years up until 1996, DRAMS were quite profitable. This year, due to over supply, they have become a marginal business with DRAM pricing dropping by 50% to 70%. These are commodity devices manufactured by 10 or 12 other companies: Micron, Toshiba, Samsung, NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc. Very low margin stuff today.
DSP chips were a very good niche. These signal processors generate good revenue, but the volumes cannot match Intel's microprocesors.
Hence , they can't generate the margins (i.e, CASH).
Their "0.18" micromn process (really a 0.25 micron process) is an ASIC process, that is Application S[ecific Integrated Circuit. What this means is that TI manufacturers integrated circuits DESIGNED BY THEIR CUSTOMERS on this line, not their own designs. They compete with LSI Logic, NEC, Toshiba, VLSI, etc. Again, this is a highly competitive, LOW MARGIN business.
TI makes a 486/586 processor but these were designed by CYRIX Corporation. I don't believe TI has rights to CYRIX' new M1 and M2 devices (that match up with Intel's Pentium) because CYRIX and TI spent a few years in court suing each other (like AMD and Intel) and I don't believe TI will get any more chip designs from CYRIX. Basically, TI has been an abject failure in designing their own general purpose microprocessor chips. They do produce high volume, low margin microcontrollers for kitchen appliances - perhaps your toaster!
Intel is generating about $850 - $900 million EACH Quarter, enough to build 3 or 4 state of the art wafer fabs (without going to the bank to borrow the dough) EVERY YEAR! No other company on planet earth can do this and have the requisite products to utilize this capacity. Intel alone has the products - Pentium and its derivatives.
Their R & D is already well along on their own .25 micron process and they have acknowledeged the development of a real 0.18 DRAWN process. Later this year, Intel will introduce an advanced version of their Pentium and Pentium Pro processors, using "MMX" technology. MMX stands for, essentially, MultiMedia eXtensions. Intel has added to the basic x86 instruction set about 40 or 50 new instructions that will enable them to perform "multiMedia" instructions 100 - 300% faster than without these instructions, ONCE APPLICATIONS SOFTWARE IS REWRITTEN TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE MMX instructions. This will not happen over night and should take 6 to 12 months, by my guess.
In reality, MMX instructions are enhancements that give the Pentium and Pentium Pro instructions very similar to those used in DSP chips. Basically, Intel is adding a DSP to the Pentium/Pentium Pro to make it execute sound, video, etc. from 1 to 3 times faster. The real threat here is to eliminate the need for general purpose DSP chips such as those made by Texas Instruments.
It is these "high demand" proprietary products that will be manufactured in Intel's new Fabs on their .35 micron, .25 micron and .18 micron processes. If TI had these fab processes today, they would have no products to make or sell.
TI is in a SQUEEZE.
Intel is also heavily into 3d graphics (high end products will be out next year), chip sets, motherboards, networking adapters, etc.
Intel will continue to grow and dominate. TI will do OK, but their glory days are gone.They have no franchise or products that customers cannot get from other sources.
Paul Engel
Intel is genearting enough cash (about |
