Bob,
How about the TSMC news? Do you think National is slowly severing its ties to its more expensive foundry partner? It sure appears that way.
I am thrilled about it, although I am not entirely clear about the timing of things:
Cyrix's arsenal grows: In the first quarter of 1998, TSMC will manufacture 6X686 CPUs for Cyrix Corp. National Semiconductor Corp., Cyrix's parent, is doing a sample run of the 6X686 at 0.25 micron in its Santa Clara, Calif., fab and plans to move mass production to Portland, Maine.
So TSMC will start producing 6x86 in Q1, but they don't say if it is .25u or .35u process. I don't think it makes any sense to make any 6x86 that run below PR-233. I am hoping that TSMC is using .25u process. That would be a great news. Then, the other article:
techweb.com
In the meantime, Cyrix plans to increase its processor speeds to 300MHz early this year, as well as increase MMX instruction set processing speeds to 2x with a new CPU core.
I would be satisfied with PR-300, but if it's 300 MHz, wow!
back to the first article:
Cyrix already has fab capacity at IBM and can use National's fabs; the company is using TSMC as an alternative source in order to meet market demands, said Stan Swearingen, director of product management. Swearingen said that TSMC will start with pilot runs and increase its output steadily over time. "About the second half of 1998, we will transfer TSMC's process design rules over to our National facility," he said.
How do you read this? DOes it mean that NSM will not be making any chips until 2H 98? If that's the case, maybe NSM will start with MXi, and leave MediaGX / GXm to TSMC and IBM.
I guess IBM will keep producing MediaGX chips. Can Cyrix just switch entire production from 6x86 to MediaGX at IBM facility? If Cyrix can do that, then IBM doesn't get any chips. Maybe that's why they are not using 6x86MX chips in their computers more extensively.
In the short run, I think we will have some positive news between now and January 14, when Presario 2240 is announced.
I hope we will see a turnaround in NSM stock price over the next 2 weeks.
Joe |
