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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ali Chen who wrote (26164)	11/25/1997 8:45:00 PM
From: Yousef	Respond to of 1584250

Ali, Re: "However, following Yousef's methods of "analysis", the IBM process must be "3 generations behind Intel" because the Cyrix processors they make are running at 180MHz at most. Here is clearly a discrepance, don't you think?" Ali, you are over your "technical" head on this discussion ... Obviously, IBM is not building the Cyrix chip in IBM's "best/fastest" process(es). IBM is using this limited, high speed capability themselves ... In the future, Cyrix might get access, but it will cost them dearly. Make It So, Yousef

To: Ali Chen who wrote (26164)	11/26/1997 10:42:00 AM
From: Patient Engineer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1584250

Ali, Re:"For example, you are saying that IBM is on top. However, following Yousef's methods of "analysis", the IBM process must be "3 generations behind Intel" because the Cyrix processors they make are running at 180MHz at most. Here is clearly a discrepance, don't you think?" The 686MX chip is manufactured in IBM's .33 micron process. Far from IBM's best. By comparison, IBM's PowerPC 604e processor is in their .25 micron process (still not IBM's best). The Cyrix chip achieves 33,000 transistors per square millimeter. The 604e gets 108,000 transistors per square millimeter. This is due both to process and design. IBM's 7s process (with copper interconnect) is even denser still with drawn gates at something like .20 micron. Density doesn't tell the entire story. The speed of 7s hasn't really been demonstrated yet, but it will certainly be impressive. This is why I have been an advocate for IBM to buy out AMD. The combination of AMD's x86 design expertise with IBM's process would be powerful.