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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ali Chen who wrote (68739)	8/13/1999 3:58:00 PM
From: kash johal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572681

I agree with Paul and you. AMD is being very smart. They are using a full 0.18 transistors for speeds but just losing density by using the larger metal rules. This way they can get faster product out earlier with minimal design disruption. So the good news is the performance is killer. And once they ramp the true 0.18 back end with minimal spacing on base layers they will get the die size advantage as well. Several points: The good news: 1. They are well on their way to 0.18. 2. Yields are good, pointing to excellent 0.18 micron yields when die size is shrunk. 3. A smooth production ramp is likely. The bad news: 1. The likely speed increase from the 0.18 micron back-end will be negligible at best. So if they are yielding 700's now they may get to 800Mhz but 1Ghz is a way away. 2. With copper they may well get some yield at 1Ghz. But unlikely with 0.18 Al. Welcome everybodys thoughts on this. regards, Kash

To: Ali Chen who wrote (68739)	8/13/1999 4:09:00 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Respond to of 1572681

<So, Engle is telling us that AMD is first to 0.18um process!> Huh? I thought Intel is already shipping the Dixon quick shrink, a.k.a. mobile Pentium II 400 and mobile Celeron 400. If that isn't 0.18 microns, then what is it? <Regarding the SPACING between transistors, is not the transistor density on Athlons already two times higher than on Intel Pentium-III> No surprise, since Athlon has that oversized 128K L1 cache. Besides, even the K6-2 has a higher transistor density than Pentium III. (9 million transistors on both, but K6-2 is 81 mm2 and P3 is 140 mm2.) <And Intel voltage, core voltage? Jacked up 14% to get to 600MHz!> Was the core voltage ever 1.8, even for lower speeds? 2.05 volts is a small hike from 2.0, but I don't ever recall Pentium III voltage being lower than 2.0. Tenchusatsu