Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Monica Detwiler who wrote (85882)	7/26/2002 6:33:11 PM
From: wanna_bmw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Monica, Re: "If Intel continues to take market share from AMD, at 1% to 2% per quarter, Intel will need that extra capacity for CPU and chip set production." Not likely. Market share that Intel steals from AMD is peanuts. Demand will eventually pick up as corporate spending increases, and that will be more significant than gains that Intel could get from AMD; however, it's still not likely to fill up all the "potential" fab space that Intel has. By "potential", I mean all the fabs that Intel now uses, plus the fabs that they intend to build. If you add all that up, then overcapacity is what you get. That's why I think that Intel intends to decommision many of their current fabs in order to transition to more state-of-the-art facilities. If you look at a recent article posted on this forum, you will see that Intel's most likely future is to decommision several .18u megafabs, and replace them with newer facilities, two of which are 300mm. Fab22 in Arizona is a 200mm .13u fab that will likely replace fab12, since it is located at the same spot. Fab11x is a 300mm .13u fab, and it will also likely replace fab11 in New Mexico. I also believe Fab24 (300mm and 90nm) will replace fabs 10 and 14 in Ireland. This will give Intel more efficient and lower cost output. Of course, there are costs involved in decommisioning facilities like fabrication plants, but they may get enough revenue from salvaging some of their older equipment to balance things out. What will be the most strategic aspect of this new construction is that they are most likely already planning for 90nm and 65nm manufacturing nodes with the design structure of their new facilities. This way, they avoid renovation costs when their older fabs aren't up for the newer specifications. wbmw

To: Monica Detwiler who wrote (85882)	7/26/2002 7:02:40 PM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Monica, As Intel goes to .13, and below in 1-2 years as well as to 300 MM wafers if will soon reach the point where it needs a few fabs to make all it can sell. As WBMW says, some will have to go, and yet many of those are still new. Will they be sold or scrapped to keep their volume off the market, or does Intel have other markets they want to enter with them? As AMD goes to .13 as well as 300MM via TMC or it's own fabs, it also faces the risk of excess capacity, still you have to have the fab space to stay in the game. Bill