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

To: Elmer who wrote (156259)	1/19/2002 1:51:11 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Elmer, >Intel on the other hand has taken the stance that they will design larger die that they can comfortably manufacture. Good points in your post. What I've been wondering lately is about the other most essential part of these kinds of companies, and how much longer AMD can afford to stay in the game. That is design, design related engineering, and associated groups. P4 has 40 something million transistors, so maybe that's 13 million or something gates worth of logic. Talk now is of 1 billion transistor chips down the road, or maybe 300 million gates. These sound conservative at about 3 transistors per gate but that's because a lot of the transistors are in RAM of one kind or another. Anyway, the 1 billion transistor chip will be like several mainframes as we know them today as far as logic complexity goes. The only companies left designing machines of this size, that is that can afford the engineering staff to do it, are $20 billion revenue and up companies. Those would be IBM, Compaq, HP, Sun, Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC, Intel, and that's about it. I seriously doubt that AMD can afford to hire and keep the engineering staff to design, simulate, design verify, design support, introduce to manufacturing, and the do all the other engineering and other related support work necessary to crank out these mainframes on a chip. Maybe this is one reason why, recently, AMD has started to talk down the necessity for chip complexities in the future that stay on the Moore's Law curve. Instead, they're talking about simpler, small die chips. Well, those could be designed with smaller staffs. AMD has done some pretty innovative things of late. I don't see them croaking when they can't afford to staff engineering any more. They probably will be bought out by some $20 billion or bigger revenue company. That would be of course only if they keep it together and would be an attractive buyout candidate. One last thing is, again, what's been kicked around a lot: why didn't AMD make money last quarter if so many good things came together? Could be too much engineering salary (plus management of course) drain for what they can ship for revenues. Tony

To: Elmer who wrote (156259)	1/19/2002 9:43:46 AM
From: Dan3	Respond to of 186894

Re: AMD seems to have made the mistake of having their eyes bigger than their stomach Here are some Itanium benchmarks for you: tweakers.net

To: Elmer who wrote (156259)	1/19/2002 12:08:44 PM
From: semiconeng	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

AMD could have a real cost advantage if they could actually manufacture their designs. AMD seems to have made the mistake of having their eyes bigger than their stomach. Under relentless pressure from Intel they are designing beyond their ability to manufacture --Exactly. I kept saying time and again that there was nothing wrong with intel's 0.13u process, despite what ole "Inquirer Mike" said. It now seems to be proving true that intel's manufacturing is clearly on-track, and AMD's is not. Intel on the other hand has taken the stance that they will design larger die that they can comfortably manufacture. Monster fabs are in place and the transition to 12" production is real and already producing revenue. AMD is years away from following suit. --The F20 Oregon site has probably been ramping the 0.13u 200mm for MONTHS, with The California D2 Fab producing and Arizona's F22 most like shipping sometime in Q1 (if not already), I think that there is going to be a FLOOD of Northwood P4 in Q1. Watch Out Jerry, That's A Tsunami Coming!!!!!! So, Intel has had some real problems over the last couple of years but who is on track now and who isn't? EP --Those days are history, not only on track now, but FULL SPEED AHEAD..... :-) Semi