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

To: jcholewa who wrote (52746)	8/28/2001 2:18:51 PM
From: Ali Chen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 275872

JC, "...if AMD can produce 70-80nm gates, why can't Intel if Intel's process is equal or better? - Elmer" This is a big fallacy, and the major point on contention between Intel "process technology" zealots and AMD admirers. Intel zealots can't stand that FACT that AMD process technology is better, and _ALWAYS_ was, although it may sound paradoxical. The simple truth is that the process advantage was the only tool where AMD could compete with Intel in the copy-CPU era of 286/386/486. And they did it successfully. In K6 era, when the 5-stage pipe of K6 had serious drawbacks against 10/12 stage pipe of the PPro/II/III, AMD managed almost to reach frequency parity. Given the "8-level of logic rule" for PPro pipes versus 20-25 levels of logic in K6, AMD advantages in transistor/layout/interconnect technology was as high as 2.5X of the Intel. I guess some process technologists at Intel and their "consultants" were not comfortable with this fact. The issue of (transistors) # (pipe length) was greatly discussed on AMD thread in K6-era, but few FAB technicians (with PhDs) did not get the idea despite of elaborate attempts of the thread to educate them. With the pipe length parity between P-III and Athlon, the AMD process technology advantage (40+%) was clear for anyone. Now, when the P4 pipe is twice as long, these morons are back. These guys have an agenda multiplied by deep ignorance, so it is totally useless to argue with them, only curse them away. Regards, - Ali

To: jcholewa who wrote (52746)	8/28/2001 5:24:56 PM
From: Elmer	Respond to of 275872

The thing is that you were using speculation to disprove something that Dan said This is not a court of law nor a place for peer review of a scientific paper. This is an investment forum. I don't have the time to present formal proof like you seem to expect. I don't see everything posted here but I don't remember you demanding proof for many of the other claims made here. Why start now? I don't think a doctoral thesis is needed, but at the very least you should not be submitting evidence for your reasoning that is completely full of potential holes. Saying that Dan is wrong because "I think the majority of the improvement was due to the increase in L2" is not much of a rebuttal, and you're basically suggesting that you have no counterevidence to offer Dan's allegations. Again I think you should spend you time in a more formal academic environment if you want formal proofs. And might I suggest you ask both sides? The thing is: You are taking as given some things which to me seem like speculation. I am not speculating although I realize to you it seems that way. I have stated that I consider my source unimpeachable though I can't name it. SEM cross sections. Your comment here is exactly about what we were complaining earlier. You just completely throw aside the core issue of why Intel and AMD have their respective operating frequencies. First of all, you imply that Intel is comfortably at 2.00GHz while AMD is "gasping for breath" at 1.40GHz. In truth, it is likely from currently known volumes that AMD is binning much better at 1.40GHz than Intel is at 2.00GHz. I did not "completely throw aside the core issue of why Intel and AMD have their respective operating frequencies". I clearly stated that the differing pipeline lengths would result in different frequency limits, even if both designs were on the same process, so how can we effectively compare the two on differing processes? I say that AMD is gasping for breath for several reasons. Jerry promised 1.5GHz Athlons for January, 8 months ago and still not here, plus a frequency gap that is destroying AMD's ASPs. This means enormous pressure to increase frequency and AMD has not come through. Meanwhile Intel is ramping frequency at a faster than announced rate and a new Cu process is soon to arrive. Combine this with the extreme lithography techniques AMD is using while Intel screams past them without such techniques and I think that makes a pretty good case for saying AMD is gasping for breath at 1.4GHz. You may not believe the posts about AMD's process and that is your priviledge. EP