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

To: kash johal who wrote (109267)	5/3/2000 9:15:00 PM
From: Mani1	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1579137

Kash re <<The outlay for building 1M MB's would be in the $35 range excluding costs of chipsets which AMD was subcontracting to UMC. $35-$50M in infrastructure investment to shore up a faster Athlon ramp is a modest financial risk that AMD should have taken.>> Sanders was very clear that the problem is not the mother board. The problem is the KZ133 chipset from Via. Mani

To: kash johal who wrote (109267)	5/3/2000 10:17:00 PM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579137

Kash, The outlay for building 1M MB's would be in the $35 range excluding costs of chipsets which AMD was subcontracting to UMC. Initially, I thought that AMD preferred to rely on Via because more of the fab capacity could be left for microprocessors. But then few days ago, the same idea (as what you just said) crossed my mind. Why not just have your own chipsets and farm out production to UMC or TSMC? Another idea: Why not just buy Via (or merge). It would solve Via's lack of x86 license, it would assure a steady flow of chipsets to AMD, and with established design centers in Taiwan, it would give AMD some less expensive EE design talent. As an added bonus, we would get the divine intervention that has been helping Via. (I wonder where that would go on the balance sheet - Good will from above?) Also, AMD could use Via's Cyrix brand for the low end and concentrate with Athlon on mid to high end. Joe

To: kash johal who wrote (109267)	5/4/2000 12:22:00 PM
From: Kenith Lee	Respond to of 1579137

Kash, The Taiwanese makers won't produce MB unless there are orders. AMD had to guarantee these manufactures by placing large order of Athlon boards. I am sure the same is going on with the Duron MB. This is not good for new products when AMD is at the mercy of the MB makers. I think Intel saw that and decided to go in to MB business.

To: kash johal who wrote (109267)	5/4/2000 1:36:00 PM
From: Petz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1579137

kash, your "AMD motherboard proposition" has a lot of pitfalls. If AMD had made initial motherboards for Athlon 1. Only the bad MB makers would have remained - Asus, Abit, EPox and others would never have made 1 Slot A motherboard 2. VIA, married to FIC, would have vastly reduced KX-133 development. 3. There would be no KX133, no PC133 support, no AGP4X 4. AMD would add infrastructure costs for mobo inventory 5. Some OEM's would not like it one bit. 6. Intel makes motherboards for their chips. They are generally regarded as middling in performance and very high on price. What makes you think AMD could do any better. 7. Besides the KX133, there would be no KZ133 or the DDR SDRAM versions of these chipsets. Forget the KZ133 with Savage4 graphics built in. Now you have to buy a graphics chipset company too. 8. If you are going to try and take over one aspect of the infrastructure (motherboards), the whole rest of it might collapse on top of you as well. This is a slippery slope that AMD was very wise to avoid, IMO. Petz