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

To: kash johal who wrote (71958)	9/15/1999 1:19:00 PM
From: Charles R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573994

Kash, <IMHO if these guys catch up this is nothing but good news for AMD. AMD can offload some manufacturing outside smoothing out its capacity issues. At that point it becomes a design play, and i just don't think folks like VIA/rise etc have the wherewithal to compete at the high end from a design standpoint. This would be a major help to AMD in eliminating one of Intel's key competitive advantages - its manufacturing.> I am not sure if it is good news for AMD if the pure FAB guys catchup with AMD on process. IMHO, when CPU market boils down to a "design play" both Intel and AMD can become irrelavent. A fabless startup anywhere in the world could become a compelling player and lead to a hugely fragmented market. To be sure, i do not see that happening any time soon but I find the possibility pretty fascinating. <Having said all that Intel/AMD are already shipping product close to what UMC/TSMC would call 0.15 micron. At least the front end is. So it maybe a while 2001-2002 before we have close to parity.> I am in sync with the assessment on where UMC/TSMC are w.r.t. to AMD/Intc today. Regarding parity in 2001-2: Based on current trends this seems like a distinct possibility. But, I would have to say both Intel and AMD will do whatever they can to keep the edge. We are talking about multi-billion dollar business with huge stakes here. How long they can keep it is anybody's guess. Whatever it is, I am pretty sure that in a short period of time (within 5 years if not less) a 20% or more of the low-end x86 CPUs will be served by TSMC/UMCs of the world. It could be VIA or Cyrix or Intel or someone else giving them the business. Chuck