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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (49319)	5/29/2002 7:32:54 PM
From: cfimx	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

time will take care of most of those software issues. i just need to know one thing about it. INTEL's name is on it. Nobody says this thing has to be a SUNCOM killer tommorow, except, for some reason you.

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (49319)	5/29/2002 7:56:46 PM
From: Just_Observing	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

Itanium 2 has a die size of 460 mm2 and dissipates 130 watts which is nearly twice that of the Ultrasparc 1050 Cu. The size of the Hammer is said to be just 85 mm2. Given that the probability of flaws is proportional to size, the Hammer will cost a small fraction of the Itanium to produce. And one wastes a lot less of the wafer if one is cutting out 85 mm2 size squares as compared to 460 mm2 size squares. As for Yamhill (Intel’s answer to the Hammer), Intel will keep it under wraps to protect its billion dollar investment in Itanium. Besides the Hammer is supposed to have similar performance compared to the Itanium 2. Given its ability to run legacy code in a native mode, Intel has many reasons to be worried. Given the tiny size of the Hammer, just one plant can easily produce 50 million chips a year. Given that AMD is currently supplying 30 million chips a year, AMD should be able to meet any demand for the Hammer. And Intel will not have a competing product which it can sell for $40 to $50 more which is the current average premium. Perhaps, MSFT realized Hammer's potential and is backing it fully. Intel has to damage AMD now. And that is one reason for the current deep discounts, IMO. Of course, the demand for chips is not growing now that the life of a PC has been extended from 2 to 3 and, probably, 3 1/ 2 years now. The ability of Linux to run well on older machines is not going to help. The demand for chips is nearly stagnant at 150 million per year. But there is the problem of excess chip capacities as manufacturers move from 0.25 to 0.19 to 0.13 to 0.09 microns. The size of the chip should decrease as the square of the shrinkage. And moving to 300 mm wafer size should help further (much less wasted wafer for one). Intel sees the problem coming and wants to stake its claim in the high end where it may get $3000 a chip instead of $ 130 to 140 for a PC chip (AMD gets around $80 to $90 a chip). Intel may have a 6 month lead in manufacturing technology over everyone. But the tiny size, legacy support, MSFT's backing, low power, and high performance of the Hammer more than neutralizes it. Intel is about to be screwed. Hence the need to create some headroom by squeezing Sun, IMHO. PS I am getting all the numbers from memory. And I read these numbers a few months ago. So don’t bet your life on them. I am just speculating here. PPS One correction already on Hammer - "The chip should measure just 104mm2 in a 0.13-micron CMOS process, according to AMD--just one-quarter the die size estimated for McKinley." gen-x-pc.com