Pentium 4 won't dominate Intel sales until 2002 news.cnet.com
Couple days old, I don't know if this was posted previously. With all the smoke and mirrors around the P4, it may be a massive misinformation play by Intel, like the alleged sandbagged leaked benchmarks.
Because of a number of marketing and technical issues, the more technologically advanced Pentium 4 will
continue to be overshadowed by the Pentium III, at least in terms of revenue and units produced, for some time,
say analysts and Intel executives.
"When does it become the economic center of gravity and when does it become the
unit volume center of gravity?" asked Bill Siu, vice president of Intel's Architecture
Group. "It won't be in 2001."
In 2002, the Pentium 4 will start to overtake the Pentium III in terms of revenue, he
said, but "in terms of units, it will be longer than that."
I don't think those statements are consistent with 10-12million a quarter by 4Q2001.
The length of the timetable derives from the size of the Pentium 4,
said Linley Gwennap, principal at The Linley Group. The Pentium
4, when it debuts, will cover approximately 217 square millimeters,
more than twice the area of current Pentium IIIs and larger than the
180 square millimeter chip expected earlier by analysts.
The principal problem surrounding the chip's size is that it greatly
reduces the number of chips that can be produced form a single
silicon wafer. "The same wafer will yield three times as many
Pentium IIIs as Pentium 4s," Gwennap said. "You're throwing away
two-thirds of your yields."
The larger size means the Pentium 4 will cost around $80 to $90 to
manufacture, more than double the $40 manufacturing cost of the
Pentium III, he estimated
Gotta get to .13um, as the saying goes. If Intel had total confidence in the P4, I don't think they would be bringing the PIII up to .13um, they could crank out plenty on existing lines, if the P4 was really ready to carry the mainstream weight. And I'm not sure sure if 1/3 as many p4's per wafer fully accounts for the reduced yield from a die that's close to 3x as big as the PIII.
Who knows, though. I've previously stated I think Willy is a big psyops play to drive everybody crazy.
Cheers, Dan. |
