It is simple prudence that will keep them from ramping if for no other reason. A bad production error could make useless a number of wafers, so they will test. That takes at least 13 weeks for normal production assuming everything goes flawlessly.
-- So, the issue with that, is what do you do with a multi-billion dollar fab during those 13 weeks. The first bit of real E-Test Data you get is Mid line, so ~ 6 weeks into your test. Do you leave wafer starts at zero until then? Do you wait the additional 6 Weeks for End Of Line Data? What are you going to do with all your Fab Production People during that time? What about the Idle tools costing the company millions per day in lost usage? Not so simple as it sounds eh? With modern semiconductor manufacturing costs, you almost Have to do risk starts. No choice.
And Intel may still have troubles, if new infrastructure is required (read chipsets, sockets, etc). If not, the glueless connectivity of Opteron will still favor AMD over P4 (Yamhill, Prestonia or whatever). It puts Intel into a bind. Add something similar for IA-x86-64 and further delay it giving even more time to AMD or leave the FSB and architecture alone and leave the bullet points to AMD for OEMs including cost, speed, scalability and ease of use.
-- You must have missed Mike Mcgee's Article today on intel 533Mhz FSB chipsets. Things look much better to me for P4, than a Non-Production "Sampling" Opteron...
theinquirer.net
Intel could build millions of Itaniums, but if the market will not buy them, production does not matter. So fabs only matter if, the product is saleable above the quanity AMD can produce its competitive product. This is the trap that many fell into with IA-64. They will wait until either has proven themselves and that gives the edge for AMD to crack this server market wide open.
Pete
-- By the time AMD gets their x86-64 act together, intel will be selling 3rd Generation 0.13u Madison Lower Power IA-64, with reported 3MB of Cache Most likely offered by almost every, if not EVERY (If SUN wakes up) Major Server Maker on the planet. Against an unproven First Generation Opteron Product with....... Who knows what, offered by, a "Whitebox Maker". I'm a server purchasing manager, I know what I'm buying. Please Check your glasses, your prescription needs adjusting, because you don't seem to be seeing too clearly.....
:-)
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