Albert,
What do you think of intel's warnings about power consumption of our fbf chip?
The die size and power consumption (and associated cooling issues) clearly show that Intel's new, and highly anticipated, Pentium 4 processor is not viable in 0.18u technology. Intel will release limited quantities in 0.18u to try and hold Mhz bragging rights, stimulate demand for Rambus memory, and give ISVs a platform to rewrite their code so that it is optimized for SSE2. The conversion to 0.13u should not occur until 2H, 2001 -- and even then, Intel will have to share its ramping 0.13u capacity with the Itanium; which also seems to need 0.13u technology. This leads to the most important conclusion drawn from this years IDF:
The Pentium 4 (Willamette) will not be a threat to AMD for another full year!!!
Having said that, in 2H, 2001, the P4 in 0.13u running at 2 Ghz should be giving AMD some competition. The beauty of the huge die size of the P4 is that by early 2002, Intel will have a 2 Ghz P4 that is about 100-110 mm^2, while AMD will have a Sledgehammer that is roughly the same size, but with dual 2 Ghz processors on the same die, that are tightly coupled for highly efficient SMP.
Yes, the fear and concern about this fall's IDF has been replaced by even more certainty of AMD's good prospects. Lucky for Intel that they were able to steal the StrongArm from Digital right under the noses of the federal regulators, while trying to make everyone believe that the deal was about Digital's fab.
Pravin. |
