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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: Paul Engel who wrote (97178)3/7/2000 12:43:00 AM
From: THE WATSONYOUTH  Read Replies (2) of 1572510
 
Re: "To get to 900 - 1000 MHz, AMD couldn't do this through design or process improvements. Instead AMD had to JACK UP the already-jacked-up-voltage of 1.7 volts to a FURTHER JACKED UP VOLTAGE of 1.8 VOLTS."

When Intel first disclosed their .18um process at Dec 98 IEDM, they claimed the transistors were optimized for a reduced 1.3V to 1.5V operation to provide high performance and low power. At the time they showed reliability data which clearly showed margin beyond 1.5V. Had there been no competition from AMD, they would have introduced .18um Coppermines at 1.5V. Knowing they could not compete with Athlon at 1.5V, they used up most of their reliability margin by releasing Coppermine at 1.65V. Now, given
even stiffer competition, they have used it all up by going to 1.7V. To do this, they had to go to a tweaked mobo (they even said at ISSCC that Vcc tolerance would need tightening
at 1.7V) and a special heatsink. There is nothing wrong with this. I think Intel knows how far they can push the
limits. But AMD is just doing the exact same thing. And - if AMD is indeed at 23A gate oxide vs. 20A for Intel, then they should indeed (all other things being equal) have more Vcc margin than Intel. There is nothing sinister here.

Re: AMD is DESPERATE.

BOTH companies are DESPERATE. Do you think we would (soon) have a choice of GHz processors otherwise??

THE WATSONYOUTH
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