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

To: fingolfen who wrote (145905)	10/23/2001 1:20:35 PM
From: Elmer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Does Intel have good volume on Northwood? Do you mean is Intel building inventory prior to release? How hard has AMD pushed their gate lengths to get 1.53GHz out of the K7? You already know the answer to this one don't you? EP

To: fingolfen who wrote (145905)	10/23/2001 7:52:35 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Re: Key questions going forward: Good post. Now, an opposing viewpoint. 1) Does Intel have good volume on Northwood? If so, then AMD will find itself in a world of hurt. Northwood will have to run its ALU clock at 6GHZ to compete with a 2.5GHZ Thoroughbred. Without SOI, current leakage could be brick wall problem. If Intel's .13 process doesn't do a heck of a lot more for P4 than it did for PIII (I expect it will), Intel has a problem. 2) How hard has AMD pushed their gate lengths to get 1.53GHz out of the K7? If they've pushed them very far, then AMD won't get much out of a bulk 0.13 micron process and will need SOI just to keep up with Intel's 0.13 micron bulk process. AMD always seems to be have shorter nominal gate lengths than other company's processes for a given node, why should .13 be different? AMD also appears to have waited for 193nm steppers to go to .18, which should let them push the .13 process just as they used 248nm steppers to push .18. 3) When will the K8 see the light of day? It has already been paper delayed several times, and is still more than a year away from launch. If it's not released until 2003, then Intel will be close to releasing 0.10 micron parts... The code name "Prescott" with an 800+MHz FSB has started to pop up on the radar. If those roadmaps are accurate, I'd expect to see that part sometime in 2003... There have been no more delays than willamette had, and merced was in its own delay league, but, as you point out, if AMD can't get the hammers out, they'll have a big problem. When will Intel get to SOI? I honestly think 2002 is going to be a tough year for AMD. I don't think they're going to be able to compete with the speed and performance of the Northwood with a 0.13 bulk process. The SOI process may improve their position, but they aren't even sampling yet. With the release of the K8 in 2003, AMD may be able to make up some ground depending on where Intel is with 0.10 micron... The speed with which AMD has transitioned to the XP processors was very impressive, though they have been sitting on them, waiting for the holiday season. It does indicate that AMD can move quickly and spring surprises. .18 Athlon XP is quite competitive with .18 P4 (I think it modestly outperforms it, you probably don't) and has a well established, inexpensive infrastructure. I think AMD doing well is a done deal for Q4 of this year and Q1 of next year. Beyond that, it's Northwood vs. Thoroughbred, and we'll just have to see. The speed at which AMD has transitioned its platform to XP must be a little scary to Intel. AMD shipped about 2 weeks worth of inventory to their distributors and overnight they're 100% moved to the new chip. This was made simple by how little had to be changed, which made for a very smooth transition and confirmed successful execution of a platform plan created years earlier. Compare that to Intel, having to junk their socket and memory architecture 1 year into the P4 platform, and look at the supply problems it's caused. AMD learned a very big lesson very well when they had so many platform problems with the original Athlon. But they did learn. It's interesting to note that they claim to have produced hammer chipsets well ahead of Hammer itself. Compare that to the chipset and platform mess Intel has been in since the 810 and 820 came out in 1999.