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

To: Elmer who wrote (153790)	1/4/2002 5:06:02 PM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

"Intel will be way ahead on frequency, and I think this chip will put them far ahead of AMD on overall performance," he says. Friday January 4, 10:00 am Eastern Time Forbes.com Chips Ahoy 2002 By Arik Hesseldahl Next Monday, Apple Computer will reveal whatever secret hype-generating products it's been hiding in its labs in Cupertino, Calif. But Jan. 7 will also be the day that Intel takes the wraps off the latest rendition of its Pentium 4 PC microprocessor. ADVERTISEMENT Intel's new chip has been code-named Northwood. What's new with this chip is that it's smaller than previous Pentium 4s, both in terms of its overall physical size and the size of the individual transistors on the chip. Intel is shifting its manufacturing technology to make chips with transistors that are only .13 micron in size, versus .18 micron before. That allows for a chip that's about 70 square millimeters smaller. Why is size so important? The smaller transistor size allows the chip to operate at higher speeds while generating levels of heat that are manageable. A chip that generates too much heat fries the motherboard. The new chips are expected to debut with a top clock speed of 2.2 gigahertz. And if Intel can keep its chips cool, there's a good chance that by the end of the 2002 it will break the three-gigahertz barrier, says Kevin Krewell, analyst with MicroDesign Resources in San Jose, Calif. That was a mind-boggling feat as recently as two years ago, when both Intel and rival Advanced Micro Devices were still jockeying to be the first to launch a chip running at one gigahertz. But getting there won't be easy, Krewell says. Keeping the chip cool means keeping its power consumption low. Most current high-end desktop PC chips eat up about 66 to 68 watts of power. The faster a chip runs, the more power it needs, and consequently the hotter it gets. The trick will be pushing forthcoming chips to higher speeds, while keeping the power they consume under 70 watts, which is no easy feat. "Once you get over 70 watts, its gets hard to dissipate the heat efficiently and still build a PC that's cost-effective and easy to manufacture," Krewell says. "I don't think Intel will have a problem building a chip than can run that fast, but I do see a problem in getting it to run that fast and still consume only 70 watts." AMD will be making similar moves. Its latest Athlon XP chips are also due to shift over soon to .13-micron manufacturing technology. AMD will also introduce another new manufacturing technology called silicon-on-insulator (SOI), which was developed by IBM in 2000, to its Athlon chips. SOI technology works by adding a thin layer of glass to prevent electrons from spilling outside of where they're supposed to be as they race around the chip itself. And as usual, each chip will have its loyal partisans, who will argue over the arcane details of which chip actually performs better in the real world. Though the official benchmarks haven't yet been released, Krewell says that this time around Intel may be putting much of the debate to rest for the time being. "Intel will be way ahead on frequency, and I think this chip will put them far ahead of AMD on overall performance," he says. But looming on the horizon, AMD has a chip in development codenamed Clawhammer. It will be a 64-bit chip that can also comfortably act like a 32-bit chip, which will make it suitable for both conventional PCs and higher-end workstations and servers. That chip won't start appearing until late this year. Related Links at Forbes.com Markets And Investing News Scan A.M.: Jan. 4, 2002 Go to www.forbes.com to see all of our latest stories, or biz.yahoo.com

To: Elmer who wrote (153790)	1/4/2002 5:57:14 PM
From: Saturn V	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

200mm vs 300mm Costs: 1. Obviously you have more consumables per wafer. This includes items like Raw Wafer Cost, Photoresist, gases etc. Thus consumables will be 2.25x, but this impact should be small, since consumables are not significant. 2. Any 300m tool will cost more than 200mm tool. WAG - 30% extra. Thus depreciation will be 30% extra. 3. Labor and overhead cost will be the same per wafer. So your WAG estimate for wafer cost may not be that bad, and the cost per square inch for 300m wafer will be cheaper than 200m wafer. However I will be surprised if the percentage yields are the same for the first year. Larger wafer will have fewer percent losses due to partial die at the edges. However the process control will inevitably be worse across the larger wafer, particularly since all the 300m equipment is not mature. For example even on 200m wafers yields on the edge are poorer, because of poorer process control on the periphery due to equipment issues. However since the periphery consists of partial die anyway, the equipment vendors stop refining the equipment to achieve better process control. Suddenly as the wafer size is increased, the equipment limitation becomes apparent. They finally fix the problem but it can take a year or two of refining the equipment design. So I expect the percent yield on the 200m core of the 300mm wafer to be equivalent to the 200mm wafer, but a significantly lower yield for the remainder( outer core) of the wafer. All pieces of equipment do not suffer from this problem. However a silicon wafer has hundreds of process steps, and it takes just one process step which is poorly understood by the vendor or the process engineer, for the yield to be less than expected. My pessimism stems from having seen 5 wafer size transitions from the days of 2 inch wafers. I hope that Intel does not suffer from the same pitfalls.