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

To: tejek who wrote (87598)	1/17/2000 1:45:00 AM
From: kash johal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572186

Ted, Re:"Intels Q4" Well its quite a mystery - allegedly they shipped ~31M units - certainly not earth shattering. Also seems like celeron availibility has been reduced lately. And at retail AMD is getting to 40%+ of SKU's and almost all the high end SKU's. And we are now in mid-Jan and intels availability is still poor at high end. Unless europe/far east is going at such gangbusters that it is sucking a lot of product from US guys. This whole scenario on AMD is getting to be too good to be true. Regards, Kash

To: tejek who wrote (87598)	1/17/2000 2:11:00 AM
From: Process Boy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572186

ted - These rev increases indicate there was nothing unusual with the Q4 sequential increase in revs in 1999 nor with the increase from Q1 to Q4. Given that scenario, it would seem that Intel had adequate time to prepare for Q4, 1999, and that they should have planned for at least a $1.5 increase in revs, and planned capacity issues accordingly. Yet they fell considerably short. Why? Do you all think it was poor planning? If capacity was the issue, were measures taken to avert a problem like putting the fabs on three shifts? Was fab space reallocated to the CPU division (which I believe is one of the most profitable divisions at Intel) to insure sufficient product? Why weren't non fab buildings that take less time to build put up to free room for cpu production? Obviously the answers to these questions would have to come from PB or Tench if their NDA's permit. ted, I'll give you a take on it, within the obvious outlines that you specified (NDA). Remember, I do not officially speak for Intel. * - Probably the biggest factor in the current supply situation is the P858 / Copppermine delay that was disclosed in June. I believe Intel anticipates full recovery from that snowball by the end of this quarter. * - Remember last year about this time, when all the hype was on the low end?? I don't believe this really had too much to do with the supply situation, but the market conditions of that time had at least some folks questioning how much demand there would be for high end products going forward. Again, I stress, I don't really believe that really has much to do with the current supply situation as bullet #1. * - As per one of my more infamous posts, by the time P858 was introduced, market demand for the product was significantly higher than what was anticipated earlier in the year. The market picture was considerably changed from the beginning of the year. However, as with previous items, the current supply situation has more to do with bullet 1 than anything else. * - Regarding fab staffing and shifts: Nothing to do with it. Fabs run 24/7/ Holidays at Intel. The only holiday fab shutdowns I know about recently was in '97, which you noted was a recession year. * - Fab space allocation: I don't see this as an issue, per se, except as a matter of overall capacity. Assuming you could do what you assert, i.e., just reallocate fab space at the drop of a dime, something else would have suffered. Intel fabs are running full out, with moth-balled fabs being recommissioned, and expansion plans are being accelerated. Fab capacity conditions are determined at points in the past to the tune of years. It is inherent to the industry that there are both gluts and shortages of capacity on a cyclical basis, the reason being is the lead times to facilitate more capacity. Note DRAM capacity cycles for illustration purposes. * - re: "Why weren't non fab buildings that take less time to build put up to free room for cpu production?"...I don't understand this question. CPU's currently have to be built in $2B facilities. You can't build them in a garage. * - Capacity planning isn't a science; it's the Holy Grail. There is some crystal ball work with this stuff. It is extremely difficult to bring online the exact amount of capacity needed, the the exact time it's needed, as the decisions that facilitate capacity infrastructure are made months and years in advance by function of the lead times involved. I.e., Dresden should be online NOW by this line of reasoning. Obviously it's not. * - Summary: The biggest factor in the current supply picture for P858 is the effects that snowballed for the disclosed 2 month delay. Other bullets are presented in an effort to try and illustrate the difficulties of capacity planning and implementation, but are not the biggest factors that would answer your question, IMO. I really don't know what for sure at a micro level what happened with the .25 micron products (GTW vs. 450's), but I do know .25 fabs are running full bore. Bringing .18 on line will help the supply situation for Intel going forward, as product line s are transitioned to products that have smaller die sizes. PB