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

To: Paul Engel who wrote (79832)	11/13/1999 10:06:00 PM
From: Mani1	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1579060

Paul Re <<Intel has an even greater manufacturing advantage over AMD than it enjoyed in the K6/Pentium II wars.>> False! Intel yields were substantially better than AMD at that time, that is no longer true. AMD is yielding the Athlon great and Intel is struggling with yielding high speed coppermines. Mani

To: Paul Engel who wrote (79832)	11/13/1999 10:18:00 PM
From: Cirruslvr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579060

Paul - RE: "Sombeody recently posted - very proudly - how AMD's CPUs were priced BELOW Intel's - for equivalent clock speed." I sure did. And to think, AMD's overall ASP is STILL going up. And it will get even BETTER next year when Athlon Ultra and Professional show up. "They did it before - with the K6x's - and LOST big time !. They are doing it again. Unlike before, where AMD at least had a die size advantage over Intel (although much inferior yields), Intel has attained at LEAST die size parity with AMD - 106 sq. mm. with 32K/256K L1/L2 cache for Coppermine and 100 sq. mm with 64K/0 K L1/L2 cache for the AthWIPE. Both die sizes are for 0.18 micron processes." (Athlon has 128K L1 cache.) As much as some people don't like this kind of thinking - It's different this time. Even though the Athlon costs more to make, it makes more money per mm2 compared to the K6-x on the .18 process, the process which ALL Athlons are being made on right now. AMD has more pricing margin this time compared to the K6-2. Remember, Jerry said $10,000 per wafer is what AMD needs. Since Athlon ASPs are MUCH higher than K6-x ASPs, that $10,000 (and then a LOT more) is practically guaranteed. Since AMD is moving up the pricing ladder right now, they can manage to be a step or two below Intel at the same MHz and still become profitable. Holding and growing profits may require AMD to be on the same step as Intel. "Intel has an even greater manufacturing advantage over AMD than it enjoyed in the K6/Pentium II wars." And AMD has higher prices than before to absorb that blow. I have no doubt Intel will make more money per processor than AMD, but since AMD is just now becoming profitable it can handle this. But in the future, if AMD retains profitability, I would hope the cost to make AMD's processors will become more closer to Intel's processors. The current advantage can't last forever. "AMD may hold and ACE, but Intel holds the other THREE." One may currentlly be enough for AMD in the upcoming future. In the long term, it should be at least 1 AMD, 2 Intel, and 1 shared. Since AMD is being reborn again, it currently can shed some future profits, kind of like an internet company. Oh my gosh, did I just say that! Does that make Flash AMD's VC? ;) Further down the road, AMD needs to be closer to parity with Intel on cost of manufacturing to remain truly competitive. "Look for Intel to EXPAND its price competition with AMD - and don't whine when it happens." Looks like Intel management thinks of AMD as potentially harmful more so than some Intel investors. Some people think Osha's reasoning doesn't make sense. They may be in for a big surprise. I wouldn't be surprised if Osha threw IA 64 and RamBUST concerns in his report just because if he said AMD as the only concern, people would have said "Off with his head". BTW, I kept getting the "no message here" error. So I replied with a blank post and then "edited" it and pasted what I wrote. This may be a solution if other poeple have the problem.

To: Paul Engel who wrote (79832)	11/14/1999 1:48:00 AM
From: Zoran	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579060

Paul, Nobody doubts that you are well informed about Intel's technology. But I really doubt that your informers about AMD's technology are equally reliable. Ten said that the horse race has started. Myself, I'd never enter a speed horse race with a gate trimming process that produces notched gates. That is inherently unmanufacturable process and Intel might pay dearly for it if they'd be forced to shrink the gate below 100 nm to stay in the horse race.