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

To: Paul Engel who wrote (38634)	11/1/1997 8:23:00 PM
From: Craig M. Newmark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, Re: "Big Silicon" IMHO, this is an apt and elegant phrase. Your invention? Craig

To: Paul Engel who wrote (38634)	11/3/1997 5:32:00 PM
From: Larry Loeb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, In relation to: That would make the Merced about 253 sq. mm in size. and result in 90 to 110 TOTAL POSSIBLE die on an 8 inch wafer (12 inch wafers will come in a few years). Two questions/comments: 1. In relation to the wafer size, my understanding was that Intel was going to move to 300 mm wafers at the same time they moved to the 0.18 micron process. I seem to remember this being stated by Paul Ottelini (sp?) at the analyst meeting in May (I know I heard/read it somewhere). Do you have more up to date information? 2. In relation to the die size. Do you think that Intel/HP might add another metal layer, or two, to the chip. Wouldn't this reduce the die size further? Would that help/hurt the heat disapation? Thanks in advance. Larry

To: Paul Engel who wrote (38634)	11/3/1997 6:50:00 PM
From: mauser96	Respond to of 186894

Paul...Reading your posts and the article in Fortune, it looks like Merced is going to be a frightfully complex chip. It is the the first 3 in 1 chip, the menage a trois of microprocessors. Yields will probably be poor in the begining and it will be very expensive for a long time, based on it's complexity and the fairly large physical size needed. I presume when enough new software comes out, the x86 and HP part of the chip can be dropped giving a much cheaper chip for mass sales. In the meantime the average consumer will probably have to get by with PII derivatives. I wonder if the Pentium family design has enough growth left in it to stay a leader over the next 4 or 5 years. About the only way I can see that it can be improved a lot is with smaller line sizes, a trick competition can use just as easily. That would limit Intel's advantages to primarily higher volume, better manufacturing, and a bigger advertising budget. These are not inconsequential advantages, but I would be happier if they had a technolgy advantage also. The stock price would do better with a technology "story" to help support the price. The mass market for Merced is too far away to be much help . (This might not be the case with a small, no earnings company which are often judged on expectations alone. Intel is too big for this) Merced sales should boom for servers and multi Cpu applications very quickly, beacaue it's multiuse abilities means in can be made in large volume, with the resulting decreased costs.