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

To: Elmer who wrote (152644)	12/16/2001 3:15:39 AM
From: wanna_bmw	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 186894

Elmer, Re: "because gate oxide integrity can be compromised around the outside of a wafer, it is sometimes the practice to intentionally reject all die within a certain distance from the outer edge. The term is "ugly die". No I'm not kidding." I believe you - I've actually heard of this before, too. Just for fun, I ran that die per wafer formula using 200mm wafers, and a few different die sizes. I picked 80mm^2 (for Tualatin die), 128mm^2 (for Palomino), 217mm^2 (for Willamette), and 460mm^2 (estimated for Merced). To make things even more fun, let's throw in Northwood at an estimated 140mm^2 with 300mm wafer. Running the formula assuming 200mm wafers (300mm for Northwood), we get: Tualatin - 343 Palomino - 206 Willamette - 114 Merced - 47 Northwood - 448 Assuming that the gate oxide integrity discounts 10mm around the edge of the wafer (thus, 180mm wafer diameter), we get (also assuming 15mm for 300mm wafer): Tualatin - 273 Palomino - 163 Willamette - 90 Merced - 36 Northwood - 358 This looks pretty dramatic, but for a fun little exercise, let's estimate Intel's die costs. Because larger dice are more affected by defects, let's pretend that Intel has 90% yields on Tualatin, 70% yields on Willamette, and 50% yields on Merced (80% on Northwood). Let's also pretend that wafer costs are between $1500 and $2000 ($3000 for 300mm wafer). That would make total dice: Tualatin - 245 Willamette - 63 Merced - 18 Northwood - 286 And cost per die: Tualatin - $6.12 - $8.16 Willamette - $23.80 - $31.74 Merced - $83.33 - $111.11 Northwood - $10.50 Let's also estimate packaging and test for Tualatin and Willamette (and Northwood) at $20 and for Merced $200 (due to the package complexity and onboard cache). That would make total cost: Tualatin - $26.12 - $28.16 Willamette - $43.80 - $51.74 Merced - $283.33 - $311.11 Northwood - $30.50 If we look at average selling prices, let's say that Tualatin is at $220 (thanks to expensive Pentium III-S and Pentium III-M chips), while Willamette is $180 and Merced is $2000 (let's guess that Northwood will be around $150). Calculating margins, we get: Tualatin - 8.1x Willamette - 3.8x Merced - 6.7x Northwood - 4.9x Now that's what I call a profitable business. It's too bad that billions need to go into research, design, manufacturing, and marketing in order to get these numbers. wbmw