Saturn - <How is Coppermine doing ? The Coppermine ramp was trickier than I first thought since you were ramping up the brand new unqualified "notched" process in four fabs. How is the ramp progressing.>
I personally believe it to be on track. I am really looking forward to the earnings announcement CC, when I'm hoping we'll get more comment from Intel Brass.
< When will the output completely satisfy the customer demand ? Hopefully you will flood the distributor segment soon.>
I don't have visibility on the distribution side of the equation. However, as you state, this is a ramp, and from the manufacturing side, units out increase over time. Otellini said double digit millions of units for Q1. I believe this is an accurate general assessment.
<The speed race with AMD has gone as you had predicted , a neck and neck contest. Are you in a position to talk about the availability and performance of the larger cache versions of Coppermine.>
There are some leaked OEM roadmaps on the web which seem to indicate a general timeframe for availability of the Cascades processors with 1M and 2M on die cache. These will have to speak for themselves, as I can't discuss release dates until management discloses them to the public.
<Any other comments you might have ?>
* - I am very pleased with the way Coppermine seems to be competing against the Athlon on performance, e.g., the PROEngineering benchmarks Anand just posted. I believe the Coppermine design team has demonstrated world class proficiency at what they do, i.e., taking existing products and improving manufacturability (optimizing Si real estate) as well as enhancing performance features (e.g., very cool on-die-cache design). Also, I believe Intel carries a very big stick when it comes to process technology, which is certainly enabling a significant portion of the MHz scaling you are witnessing. I would also bet my lunch that P858 cost structure is extremely competitive vs. the competition.
* - Willamette, (when it is released), should directly benefit performance-wise from all of the process optimizations being incorporated into the Coppermine product now.
* - I continue to see the MHz race going neck and neck at least until Willamette is available, unless one of the participants stumbles manufacturing wise. MHz race post Willamette release: I don't want to speculate until I have more visibility on what AMD intends to do within my sights. I do know that people familiar with the Willamette design are very excited about the features it brings to the table. I am very upbeat about the process technology that Willamette will be implemented on w.r.t. to raw performance.
It's good to be back on SI on a more regular basis.
PB |
