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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: andy kelly who wrote (132858)	4/18/2001 7:34:17 PM
From: semiconeng	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

RE: Has AMD announced any yet? I haven't seen any press releases. I'm guessing they will announce one in '02 and start ramping in '04. Does that not sound right to you? Andy, I haven't seen any AMD announcement of 300mm commencing....Plenty of speculation and rumors, though.... The timetable you quote, would depend on whether AMD builds a Fab, or partners with someone, or retrofits on of their existing 2 Fabs. Based on what I've seen on the speed of construction of F22, here's my WAG: Currently, Intel's Fab12 holds the industry record for building a Fab, and starting operation. An article in the local "Chandler Connection" newspaper today, had an article on F22 that quoted F22 Plant manager Rick Paulson as stating that F22 "should be fully operational between August and October". Since intel broke ground on F22 in February 2000 that would mean that F22 would be completed 20% faster than the F12 record. That was of course achieved by having, at the peak of construction, 3000 construction workers going 24x7. Of course, building this 1 million Sq Ft facility in 18-20 months will cost ~2.2 billion dollars. I don't think AMD has that kind of money. So if AMD goes this route, announcing in 02, and ramping in 04, seems dubious. Partnering - This could reduce the costs for AMD, but I'm doubtful that it would speed things up any over the above scenario. Currently the only other 300mm Fabs I've heard about are flash related, and I'm not so sure that an AMD partner who's main focus is flash would be willing to commit to that aggressive a build schedule and/or ramp, considering the present state of the flash business. They might want to share some of their current capacity. Did I hear someone say Motorola?? I don't think so, not with the losses and layoffs they've had in semiconductors. IBM? I don't think IBM is interested in getting into the semiconductor manufacturing business in that big a way. My dealings with IBM in the past, have taught me that IBM is mostly interested in manufacturing chips for their internal use, and their Fabs are already underutilized. Retrofit - Here, AMD runs into the problem of ripping out the old equipment. From what I've seen, very little of 200mm equipment is reusable in 300mm. Intel follows a "copy exactly" strategy, in which all the 0.18u Fabs share exactly the same equipment. If a 200mm tool is removed from say Fab12 due to manufacturing improvements, that tool can be moved to another 200mm Fab that is behind it in the ramp coming up to speed. I hear that intel used this very successfully in switching over it's former DEC Fab in Hudson Mass. Unfortunately, AMD's Texas and Dresden Fabs don't use this strategy, of course they could sell off the equipment as used. I'm not sure the disruption in the current manufacturing process would be worth it. All in all, I don't see how AMD could achieve 300mm in the timeframe noted. If it were me, with limited resources, I'd be focusing on 0.13u technology, not 300mm, and I don't see a 300mm white knight on AMD's horizon. JMHO of course... :-) Semi