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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: shrinks who wrote (64409)	7/11/1999 8:47:00 PM
From: gbh	Respond to of 132070

What does price have to do with where the process technology, if you are using that as a base then Intel must be several generation's behind the process leaders based on the what they are selling P3's at. For commodities like DRAM and graphics chips, price would be indicative of when the process has ramped to significant volume and yield to become a company's bread and butter. We both know INTC sells .25 stuff anywhere from gutter bottom (Celeron) to absurdly overpriced (Xeon) for basically the same die. Samsung's shipment of hugely overpriced 256Mb parts to the high end server market is indicative of low yields and an immature process. When they move 64Mb production to .18, like they've stated an intention to do, you'll know the process is mature. INTC and others can do the same right now, but no one can produce cost effectively enough (read, mature process) for cost sensitive markets. Re: LSI, I'll again state that G12 is a joke. No design announced to date. And certainly no mass production. A graphics chip would be a likely user of LSI G12. But they need volumes that only a mature process can give. TSMC and UMC have .18um processes qualified and ready for customers. Again, the graphics guys love these vendors. None using yet. I'm still waiting for an announcement. Remember, INTC has also announced and built .18 Coppermine chips. Low yields though. They know when they really ship this stuff, this manufacturing process must be truly ready for volumes; real volumes. Millions per quarter from the get go. Again Intel has never had any reason to have a top notch process and they still dont. If you call a .25 drawn process that yields a CISC beast like the P2/3 nicely at 550Mhz as not top notch, then I'm wasting my time arguing here. The one thing Intel probally does better than anyone is transfer and run the identical process in multiple fab's, but in IMO this is what slows them down from being more aggressive. BINGO. Intel's real crown jewel. Manufacturing transparency. I just disagree with the lack of agressiveness assertion. They will again be the first of the CPU guys at .18 in real volume. gary