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

To: Joe NYC who wrote (135117)	5/15/2001 2:54:10 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Joe, <If you don't know what I am talking about, answer this: why is the Copper(less) mine stuck at 1 GHz?> The fact that Coppermine even got to 1 GHz is an amazing feat in itself, given that it was based on a five-year-old core at the time of its release. As for copper, Intel has argued that with 0.18u, copper doesn't buy all that much. It is only at 0.13u and beyond, where frequency is more limited by interconnect than transistor speeds, that copper makes a real difference. As for AMD, sure they get better bin splits from their new copper fab over their old one, but you can't honestly imagine AMD really trying all that hard to push their aluminum process as far as their copper. Finally, the debate over SOI is still up in the air. I think Intel is arguing that SOI is simply not worth the effort, but then again, any company not going for SOI would say that anyway. There were papers and presentations inside Intel discussing the SOI issue at length, but the stuff they were talking about went way over my head given that I'm not a process guy. Tenchusatsu

To: Joe NYC who wrote (135117)	5/15/2001 3:59:46 PM
From: fingolfen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

How do you know that? AMD gets higher bin splits from their copper process than Al process, why do you think Cu did not contribute to that? Or are you comparing apples to oranges, that is comparing different processors? If you don't know what I am talking about, answer this: why is the Copper(less) mine stuck at 1 GHz? It is using pretty much the same process technlogy as P4. I can see one source of misconception here. Based on what I've read from Intel, they saw no speed advantage at the 0.18 micron generation technology for Cu. If memory serves, AMD never had a true 0.18 micron aluminum process. They had 0.18 micron transistors coupled to a roughly 0.22 micron aluminum backend. Simply going to a 0.18 micron back-end would provide a performance boost. When AMD went to Cu, they shrunk the back-end to 0.18 micron as well, which would provide a bin improvement. Again, it doesn't mean that the boost came from the copper itself. As to why the coppermine is "stuck" at 1GHz on the same process technology as the P4... it's a design issue. The core of the P3 is six, almost seven years old. If there is no advantage to Cu, why then is Intel switching now? Are you saying that Intel will never use SOI? I never said that there was NO advantage to Cu, just not a speed advantage. The major advantage of Cu is in solving electromigration problems... hence the reason Intel is moving to it for 0.13 micron. As to Intel's future use of SOI. I don't know... If Intel sees a performance advantage in the future, I'm sure they'll integrate it into their process. If you're paying a hefty COG premium for a 1% improvement in performance, however, it hardly seems worth it.