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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FruJu who wrote (27833)	3/10/2000 2:16:00 AM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

I'm not sure I'd want to depend on AMD process engineering - from the specs it appears the Athalon 1G pulls a whopping 60+ watts. By contrast the PIII 1G comes in at 30+ watts. If IBM can really produce a 600Mhz G4, I think it would be obvious why MOT would block that contractually if they could. It would seriously cut into MOT semi revenue. Rich

To: FruJu who wrote (27833)	3/10/2000 2:21:00 AM
From: THE WATSONYOUTH	Respond to of 213182

Re: "Do you know whether this rumoured "non-compete" clause in the Motorola/IBM Somerset breakup is true? Namely, that IBM cannot sell any PowerPC G3s or G4s unless Motorola is also selling the same speed? The rumor boards are hot with this claim that IBM has 600MHz G4s ready to go but can't ship them to Apple because Motorola can't build anything better than 500MHz." The Moto/IBM Somerset design alliance broke up in (I believe) June 98. I can't imagine any "non compete clause". But then again, I can't remember the last time IBM got the better of a deal. I would guess that IBM can't get beyond 550MHz on G3 because of the G3 4 stage pipeline design and the .25um process. Given that the SIMD instructions doubled the size of the G4 relative to the G3 (80mm2 vs 40mm2) you would expect them to do no better than maybe 500MHz with the same .25um process on G4. I see no mystery here. Neither did Moto. So, Moto licensed IBM to build G4s at .25um only, KNOWING all ready they wouldn't get past 500Mhz. That does seem to be where we are now except another 6 months have been wasted. If IBM was allowed to shrink the design to .18um groundrules IMMEDIATELY, I believe they could do 700MHz. So, in my opinion, AMD will not allow the shrinking of the design because either 1) they are not ready to process at .18um or 2) they are simply waiting for the finalized G4e design to begin .18um production (how soon?). So, I doubt these 600MHz+ G4s exist although IBM certainly, in my opinion, could produce them (700MHz) at .18um. Somehow, I don't think Apple's best interests are being served. I guess the customer isn't always right. With this alliance, maybe never. THE WATSONYOUTH