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To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (34225)	3/30/2001 1:16:11 AM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

TWY, Good points. But the timeframe you specified Q1 2002 coincides with the timeframe of AMD's own process to be released. I don't know where AMD will be compared to IBM at theat time, but wouldn't it somehow undermine AMD's own process technology? Maybe a combination of process technology transfer and foundry agreement starting much sooner (Q3 2001 through Q1 2002) would make more sense. Maybe AMD wanted it, and IBM sold it only under condition that a foundry agreement is signed as well. As far as transferring the technology to AMD, if IBM sells it to anyone, AMD is probably the ideal customer. There isn't much overlap if any in the product lines, and AMD doesn't fab to outside companies (with exception of the division they just sold, but that is probably on a trailing edge technology). THe notebook market makes sense, since the IBM made processors would most likely be the highest end until, and only a possible introduction of mobile P4 could challenge it. Joe

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (34225)	3/30/2001 7:26:07 AM
From: dale_laroy	Respond to of 275872

"I'm guessing .13um Thoroughbred mobiles in the 500,000 to 1,000,000 chip range perhaps for a limited (1 quarter) amount of time." Somehow, I just can not picture a foundry agreement for a duration of only one quarter. If such an agreement has been struck, how IBM would benefit would be with a solid commitment to their own wafers being produced in bulk. Bulk production of SOI wafers by IBM would bring down foundry costs for other partners, increasing IBM's profits and/or lower the wafer cost to the partner. To insure that this comes about the agreement would have to be of fairly long duration, at least a year. Additionally, I would anticipate that IBM would gain the rights to fab mobile Thoroughbred (or 0.13-micron shrink of Palomino) processors under the IBM brand for internal use. For this reason it might be more accurate to describe this as a mobile Palomino rather than Thoroughbred. I have a feeling that Thoroughbred will, like Hammer, support SSE2, and like Northwood, have 512K L2 cache. The mobile processor fabbed by IBM would likely be a shrink of Palomino without SSE2 and with only 256K L2 cache. This type of an agreement would make sense for many reasons. One is the time that it takes to convert a bulk silicon design to SOI. The other is the historical impact of foundry agreements with IBM on their partners. And, from an historical perspective, this would be like licensing IBM to produce the Littlefoot K6 as AMD moves on to K6-2, which did AMD no harm. IBM could continue to produce under license and market the 0.13-micron SOI mobile Palomino indefinitely, while AMD moves on to the 0.13-micron SOI mobile Thoroughbred fabbed at Fab30.

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (34225)	4/2/2001 9:45:18 AM
From: Scumbria	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Watson, Here is how the Cyrix thread felt about IBM in 1997: (IBM ME could be the primary reason why our Cyrx investment turned out so poorly. The costs for production, the obstructionist elements, and the inability of IBM Corporate to really commit to the superior M1 design resulted in Cyrix being to market too late, with too big a die, and too little marketing and sales support. IBM extracted an incredibly lucrative deal from Cyrix re chips. It was painful, but IBM could have been the necessary stepping stone for visability and a market beachhead. Cyrix took that risk perhaps naively hoping that IBM was serious about being a partner. And Cyrix gave IBM a big stake, lots of chips, accesss to the technology, and essentially an open door to any depth of partnership IBM would want. What did IBM do? It took the chips and undersold Cyrx on the third market, for pennies profit. They didn't have the forsight, even if they had the means of production, to take the M1, M2, Gx, MXi etc and reassert a challenge to INTC for control of the hardware platform. Annals of Corporate Cowadice and Stupidity take note. This is the next useful Harvard Business School case study. IBM was a GREAT partner! Thanks IBM. May your stock die a thousand deaths.) Message 2961003 Scumbria