"Once the technology arrives, Intel seems to come in with both feet," York said. "They may spend more in research and development to make sure everything is right. If SOI is similar to their copper strategy, they may be sitting back and let other companies do the R&D, and then later they will benefit from all the expenditures by other companies. It is not a bad thing to do."
My hunch is that this is wrong. Certainly simlar assessments of Intel have been wrong in the past.
I would bet that Intel has had more exhaustive SOI R&D efforts that IBM has had. Intel is dealing here with IBM's publicity department, which seeks to restore IBM's chip technology lustre to its former brightness.
I saw firsthand cases where Intel had spent enormous amounts of money on technologies, but kept quiet about the results, and then saw minor efforts by National, Fairchild, AMI, and others trumpetted in the press. And when Intel unveiled, eventually, its technologies and products, _some_ in the press said "Intel appears to be copying AMI."
The proof is in the pudding, and Intel usually had the technology pinned down long ahead of its rivals, while the marketing department was trying to transfer the technology to the engineering department.
I've outlined Intel's involvement with SOI/SOS since around 1974. The fact that IBM announced their results this past year is no reason to believe that Intel is behind. No reason at all.
--Tim May |
