I think you are looking for ways IBM could fab thing for AMD. Was there anything in the press and annual statement blurbs that makes you consider to be a strong probability? Wouldn't it make more sense for AMD to structure the deal similar to the one with Motorola, which was just a transfer of expertise and some joint development? In that case, I don't know how much would be in it for IBM If SOI is very important, and IBM has a lead, why would IBM want to bring it to the mainstream - meaning selling the expertise? Wouldn't it erode the premium they can get for fabbing SOI devices? Or do you mean by bringing it to mainstream, signing on more customers for foundry services who demand SOI, so that IBM can internally convert more of their capacity to SOI?
With a fabbing agreement, they don't sell the expertise but bring the demand for SOI into the mainstream market. "This deal is important to us because it shows that SOI will become a mainstream technology and we have an important competitive advantage," said Bijan Davari, IBM fellow and head of research and technology at IBM Microelectronics. Davari is on the hook to make sure SOI succeeds. There are tremendous egos involved here as well. But I don't think they will simply sell the expertise. I don't see IBM letting the SOI process get out of their hands. They have as much said that on numerous occasions. That is not true for their foundry bulk technology which they will sell complete to anyone. They claim a multi million dollar deal. AMD certainly doesn't need IBM from a design point of view. I see this as a fab agreement. The question is for what and how much. I'm guessing .13um Thoroughbred mobiles in the 500,000 to 1,000,000 chip range perhaps for a limited (1 quarter) amount of time. That would jive with a modest $50-$70 million type of contract. That's not very many wafer starts per week on a .13um IBM process. Again, this is all speculation on my part. But, what else do we do here? If we knew what was going to happen, we'd all be rich and wouldn't be hanging around here.
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