Chuck, re:<As I have said a few times before, the faster the K6 falls by the way, the better it is for AMD.>
We have to agree to disagree here, I think. If AMD did not have the K6x, Intel would run a marketing campaign saying that Athlons are like the Celeron, and they would run the Celeron MHz up to 700 MHz.
Remember that the Celeron with Coppermine core can run the same MHz as the regular Coppermine, and I believe Intel would sell the 700 MHz 128K L2 part for $125 at the same time they sell the PIII 700 MHz 256K L2 part for $500. The business market would probably be stupid enough to buy enough PIII's to keep Intel's ASP at $200, while AMD Athlon 700 would be forced to a price of $100.
The above scenario means that until the Spitfire ramps, we have to keep K6x.
After Spitfire ramps, we can get phase out K6x if all of the following are true:
1. Production cost for Spitfire are close to Coppermine 128K -- this would likekly be satified if its die size is close to Cu128K
2. 75% of Coppermine 128K's average price, which is what Spitfire will sell for, is at least $60
3. Super7 board makers spontaneously embrace Socket A, or are given financial incentives to do so.
However, even if all of the above are satified, if K6-2P die size is half that of Spitfire on 0.18 and frequencies can reach 700 MHz on 0.18, it makes sense to keep manufacturing them as the "low end" chip for both desktops and notebooks.
Petz |
