Joe, Re: "I think AMD is still drowning in inventory (internal). AMD has been selling .13u desktop parts for some 3 weeks, the highest bin only. For each one, they must have produced 9 lower bin parts, but none of these are being sold, which implies there is still too much Palomino inventory around. If there is a lot of Palominos around, it means that AMD has plentiful parts to sell."
You're close. I believe the inventory glut is external, or else you'd see AMD's internal numbers change (and they haven't). Too many of AMD's customers are swimming in Palomino chips, and since Thoroughbred offers little more competitively (besides a small reduction in power), nobody wants them. The 2200+ bin is the exception, since this presents AMD's customers with a new sku item with higher performance, and so it is desired more. As for what happens to the lower bins, I doubt AMD is throwing them away, and I know that the inventory isn't building too much, so I can only assume that AMD has been selling as many Palomino and Duron chips from their internal inventory as they are putting Thoroughbred chips into it, thus keeping levels flat. This would suggest that AMD is keeping a careful eye on their manufacturing, and keeping it held back until conditions improve. Once AMD's customers sell out of their current chips, I'd expect the Thoroughbred transition to happen very fast - almost over night.
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