Darrell, I'm not trying to be negative. Where do you get that? I'm just considering possible obstacles ahead.
(a) read the news from Intel. They announced there was no plant delay - just a reshuffling.
You read it. It says Intel will delay its opening of a microprocessor plant both in Texas and in Israel. In the case of the Israel plant it will be equiped for CPU's instead of flash.
(b) What's Intel going to do? Oh, they are going to say, hey there's a change here folks, our business is being eaten up by the faster lower cost players, guess we'll no longer apply Moore's Law, the change of wind stinketh.
Intel can decide to cut back on its fab build out if it doesn't need to ramp capacity as quickly. That could mean Cymer only sells 500 lasers next year instead of 700 which blows the sequential growth picture for 98.
(c) What? There never was a speed up in demand for flash memory!
Get up to speed! Flash memory is to be used in digital photography which was hoped to be a huge growth area. That hope is now under question.
(d) Tim, Tim. If we have a family that can afford a $2,000 computer, how many families can afford a $1,000 computer - two more families?
Darrell, Darrell. Low cost PC's are not using PII chips. Add to that the fact that corporate clients are happy with P166's and you find that this affects the future growth of new fabs. Intel may not need to ramp new capacity for PII's as quickly if older technology is enjoying a longer market life.
This is a major factor affecting Intel right now.
Get up to speed. |
