Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (122990)	8/24/2000 1:23:12 AM
From: dale_laroy	Respond to of 1578967

Jim, wish I could remember the site. Of course, several things about the bar charts illustrating market share have already been proven wrong, including the Duron reaching volume shipment before the T-Bird started shipping. John is right, the only way for Duron to outsell T-Bird in Q4 is for Duron to cannibalize Athlon sales. However, it should be realized that Celeron did in fact cannibalize P-II sales when introduced in its second incarnation. The difference is that Celeron was introduced during a processor shortage and even the fastest speed grade Celeron was at a significantly lower price than the same speed grade P-II. By contrast, there is currently a processor shortage, especially at the high end, and the 700 MHz T-Bird (I have a 700 MHz T-Bird myself) is just $15 more than the 700 MHz Duron. This is as I predicted at Ace's Hardware back in April/May when speculation by some was that T-Bird would more expensive than K75. In any case, AMD has almost zero incentive to ramp either Duron production or K6-2+ production until Timna is introduced mid-H1 2001. I believe AMD will be a marginal player in the low end until this point. It may even be that AMD will not get serious about Duron until Intel's first 300mm 0.13-micron copper interconnect fab comes online. It should be realized however that Intel will probably have two more 0.18-micron fabs online by mid-H1 2001. And, if they can get their yields up, they could temporarily (until Willy production ramps) flood the market with Timna. The big question is, can AMD move the sweet spot to 1.0 GHz before Timna is introduced? Getting the price of the 1.0 Ghz Athlon down to under $180 in Q1 2001 should help. Then again, there is a slump in the market in Q1, potentially producing a temporary processor glut, which could last till mid-Q2 2001, forcing AMD to choose between ramping Duron production and slashing the price (they will need to cut the price of the 600 MHz Duron to less than the current price of the 500 MHz K6-2 in order to offset the higher price of Socket-A mobos) or reinvigorating the K6-2+ market by introducing a desktop version at faster speed grades, potentially up to 1.0 Ghz, but more likely peaking at 900 MHz. In any case, AMD can be expected to sharply curtain K6-2 production in Q4, and probably keep Duron production low as well in order to capitalize on the processor shortage situation.