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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: Scumbria who wrote (35556)8/7/1998 1:29:00 AM
From: Petz  Read Replies (2) of 1575034
 
Pentium II shortage developing -- why? "Production Problem" according to whatisnew.com (a large internet CPU/motherboard seller and an authorized Intel processor dealer (IPD))

We will not be taking any orders for Pentium II 300 MHz processors.

Then they say the following:
Intel CPU pricing increases and limited availability for our clients.

We read with great interest some of the posts in the usenet groups questioning processor price increases and product shortages.
...
Now here is the real insider information. We posted it the other day, but didn't make a big deal of it. According to several informed Intel representatives, there will be a shortage of most boxed Intel processors for the next 8 weeks - due to a manufacturing problem. We were not given any details on the problem. We suspect that Intel is using this time to emphasize the entry level Celery product. After all, it will be available while the Pentium II will not be available.


Here's what I think the nature of the production problem is:
Intel is having difficulty making a sufficient qunatity of the SRAM's needed for the L2 cache inside Pentium II Packages.

It would not make any economic sense whatsover for Intel to PUSH Celeron's to replace their Pentium II's! The profit margin on the Celeron is MUCH LOWER (half the selling price and $10 less cost of production).

But if there's not enough SRAM for the Pentium II's, what are they going to do with all those Deschutes wafers?? The only thing they CAN do is make Celeron's out of them.

Why would Intel have an SRAM shortage? Possibly, they decided to switch SRAM production to their 0.25u process from the old 0.35 process they've used up until now and they are having yield problems.

Here's some reasons why Intel would want to switch to 0.25u on the SRAMS:
1. the 0.35u SRAM's are probably too slow for the 450MHz Pentium II, soon to be released. But the 450MHz Pentium's aren't identified until after they're married to their SRAM's.
2. Intel wanted to lower the cost of the SRAM's

Other reasons for a shortage of Intel SRAM's
1. The Xeon chips, because of the chipset bug, need perfect SRAM's, so they're eating a lot of production capacity because of low yield. (The ECC can't be trusted to "fix" SRAM's which aren't perfect)
2. Ramping up of the Mendocino chip has taken production capactiy away from SRAM production, so while the Mendocino chips are "in process" there's a shortage of SRAM.

Petz
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