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.

Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (16527)	10/29/2000 12:26:57 PM
From: dale_laroy	Respond to of 275872

AMD went from 184mm2 for K7 at 0.22-micron design rules to 102mm2 for K75 at 0.18-micron design rules. Not allowing for the fact that edge pads (you know, the area in which Micron fitted 8MB of eDRAM for free in Mamba) do not scale well with process shrinks, if AMD were to do an optical expansion of K75 to the original 0.22-micron design rules, they would get a 153mm2 die size. This means that, even adjusting for the design rule shrink, K75 was at least a 17.2% relayout shrink from K7. Adjusting for edge pads, K75 was probably closer to a 23% relayout shrink versus K7. My guess is that, if AMD could achieve this much of a relayout shrink from K7 to K75, they could achieve at least this from Spitfire to Morgan. The problem is that they are not just doing a relayout of the core. They are also enhancing it. At least some of the relayout savings will be offset by enhancements. My guess is that the original target was reducing the Duron from 99mm2 to 81mm2. How close they came to this is currently anybody's guess. I don't really expect AMD to produce any Palomino processors at Fab25. AMD projects that Athlon sales will be at only 1/2 the level of Duron sales throughout 2001. This would indicate that, once Fab30's production exceeds 50% of Fab25's, AMD will have to shift some Duron production to Fab30. Fab30 will be at 50% of capacity by Q1 2001, and at least part of Fab25 will not have yet been converted from K6-2+ production to K7 production, so it is quite possible that AMD will have to shift some Duron production to Fab30 with the introduction of Morgan.