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

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (76620)	10/23/1999 4:36:00 PM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574499

All, from the yahoo zoo, credit to FactFirst, tscn.com 10/22/99 - Hyundai, Infineon hint at interest in new AMD fab -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oct. 22, 1999 (Electronic Engineering Times - CMP via COMTEX) -- DRESDEN, GERMANY - As Advanced Micro Devices officially opened Fab 30, its 8-inch wafer fab here, speculation swirled about whether the company would need to reach out to new partners to defray the costs of the leading-edge plant. South Korea's Hyundai and Infineon Technologies AG (Munich) have expressed an interest in gaining access to the facility. Earlier reports suggested Motorola was also eyeing a deal with AMD. At the opening, AMD announced plans to make Athlon microprocessors on an 0.18-micron process technology with copper interconnect next year that will clock at 1 GHz. But there are signs a deal is under consideration to help AMD find the funds to build up production here. In the first nine months of 1999 the Sunnyvale, Calif., company lost $154 million on revenue of about $1.8 billion. A spokesman for AMD Saxony Manufacturing GmbH, the subsidiary of AMD that runs Fab 30, quoted Jerry Sanders, AMD's chairman and chief executive officer, as telling financial analysts, "We are highly confident that we will not have to absorb all the cost of Fab 30 next year." The spokesman said Sanders had declined to answer further questions about the possibility of a buyer for all or part of the Dresden fab. "With the official opening AMD has reaffirmed its commitment to Dresden. Fabs are very expensive in the ramp-up phase but the fab is AMD Fab 30 and it is a central element in our strategy," the spokesman said. Although Fab 30 has been running silicon since November 1998 and has been producing K6 microprocessors on a 0.25-micron CMOS process technology throughout this year, AMD described the official opening as the end of the "startup" phase. The company would not disclose how much the fab is currently producing. Its eventual capacity is scheduled to be 5,000 to 6,000 8-inch wafer starts per week. Last week, Chang Seock Han, senior vice president in the strategic planning office of the semiconductor group of Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd., said he would be traveling to AMD's Dresden opening ceremony to look over the plant and that a deal between Hyundai and AMD was a possibility. However, Hyundai's situation is complicated by the fact that it has put plans for two wafer fabs in the U.K. on hold. The developments, in Scotland and Wales, stalled when Hyundai and LG Semiconductor, now merged, were hit by the Asian economic crisis in 1998. Ulrich Schumacher, president and CEO of Infineon, said that because of the improving semiconductor market, building or acquiring a fab in the Dresden area in which to install 300-mm wafer processing equipment was becoming a priority. Of AMD Fab 30 Schumacher said, "If it's cheap enough perhaps we should buy it." However, Schumacher admitted it would be difficult for Infineon to move quickly as the company was still awaiting finalization of the details of its initial public offering. The IPO, which is the result of its separation from parent Siemens AG, is now expected sometime toward the end of the first quarter of 2000. While an outright purchase of AMD's Dresden fab seems unlikely, some sort of technology and production sharing may be possible. According to reports, Sanders has said that AMD discussed fab sharing with Motorola, the source of the company's copper interconnect technology, to help reduce costs and risks. Motorola is Infineon's partner in Semiconductor300, the joint venture that is running a 300-mm pilot line in Infineon's Dresden fab. That pilot line has just begun to ship 64-Mbit DRAMs commercially, the first chips in the world to come from 300-mm wafers and go to the open market. Schumacher said the only way to expand 300-mm production was by building or acquiring a new production module. Infineon CEO Schumacher: fab shopping in Dresden? -0- By: Peter Clarke Copyright 1999 CMP Media Inc.

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (76620)	10/23/1999 6:22:00 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574499

Jim, <The Coppermine 733 reminds me of the 486-100, where as the current Athlon is analogous to the Pentium 60/66...> Thanks for reminding us what a real jump in generations looks like. Funny how Coppermine will be pretty similar in performance to an Athlon at similar clock speeds. The same definitely wasn't true between the 486 and the Pentium. Tenchusatsu