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

To: Robohogs who wrote (71803)	2/17/2002 8:27:49 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 275872

"what are the odds of a big screw-up at this point with silicon in the hands of major players?" It's always out ther, but it is more likely to happen when they feel pressure to crank things up. Both companies are under more of that pressure than anytime in the past. And it won't be letting up anytime soon, it looks like both will be making the transition to 90nm next year, with 65nm 18 months from then. To get a feel for it, Fab30 started production wafers a little over two years ago, according to AMD, they started production on 0.13 micron last quarter, albeit probably late in the quarter. According to roadmaps, and you know exactly how much to trust in them, AMD plans on starting 90nm production in Q103 or Q203. Now the joint fab is supposed to start wafers in Q205 or Q305 on 65nm, but if AMD is planning on doing 65nm at Fab30, that could, and is likely, to start earlier than that. Intel seems to be shooting for a similar timeline. Bottom line, both AMD and Intel are pushing real hard for the future. The harder they push, the more likely a mis-step. Now the roadmaps are likely to be real optimistic, but a major slip is going to hurt the slippee if the other one keeps traction. Look how the Palomino slip hurt AMD, and they had a product that was still competitive, I don't think either will have that sort of cushion over the next year or two. AMD has a big process inflection point coming up, SOI, and an architectural one, x86-64. Intel doesn't have a process inflection, but next year they might have several architectural ones, hyperthreading and the possible 64 bit x86 extensions. AMD is likely on more stable ground because they are doing both of those now. Intel should have the hyperthreading down pretty pat, but the 64 bit extensions are a ways out...