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To: Paul Engel who wrote (41845)	12/10/1997 4:54:00 AM
From: Pigboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Thanks very much Paul re:mpeg, numa, etc. It appears from the latest DELL PR, that a software based MPEG2 solution is not as good as a hardware one. It seems there may be a life in the MPEG folks if they can make one chip solutions. Why do you (and many others) think that set-top boxes will even need a CPU, considering many set-top boxes now only require MPEG2 solutions? Sorry if thats a dumb question, but I assume it all comes back to the internet. << NUMA-Q, as implemented by Sequent, is a tremendous way of harnessing Intel's Pentium Pro - I think at least 32 CPUs can be linked in the Sequent configuration. The software is critical and Sequent has been able to support the 32 Pentium Pros with a very flexible O/S . >> I thought I read somewhere that NUMA could scale up to 252 PPros in a single cabinet. That does sound a bit insane. The knock I think against SQNT is that thier stuff is proprietary (the OS and the way they do NUMA). They seem to be in a nice lead though, and they are interesting to me because they are among the first to use Fibre Channel. << The Sequent NUMA-Q implementation is very powerful. I keep thinking that Sequent will be a perfect target for a "takeover" by a company that wants to get quickly into the high end enterprise transaction processing/server segment - HP, Dell, IBM or even DEC would seem to be likely candidates. >> Ive thought so myself. I can see DELL or HP as fits. I believe HP rumors went around last year, but nothing ever came of it. I do not own any SQNT and may get very tempted if she gets hit more bc of Asian worries (which may affect them yet). << Re: "do you think its insane to be looking there or more like an investment in amd, useless?" I don't quite understand what you are asking here. Can you re-phrase your question? >> Sorry, it was poorly written. I was basically trying to ask if you thought that investing in the South Korean index looked kind of interesting now bc of its giant hit and no one wants it (ie. a la J.Temptleton). Or did you think such an idea was more like trying to invest in AMD right now. :-) What I find interesting about investing nowadays is that when you want to diversify into other countries/continents for portfolio safety (ie. if US gets hit, at least I have that Asian fund thats doing well), you really are rolling the dice even more. :-/ Do you have any other favorites besides Intel currently (although you have said they may have a tough few quarters in front of them)? Thanks ALL IMHO pigboy

To: Paul Engel who wrote (41845)	8/14/1998 4:14:00 PM
From: Ron Mayer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, StrongARM and something you wrote back in December. Back in December you wrote: Message 2922869 > >Intel's Pentium II (MMX) can do MPEG-2 decoding in software ... >It would appear that Intel is positioning themselves to supply the >CPU-centric set-top box, since some sort of CPU would probably be >required even with a dedicated MPEG-2 decoder such as from CUBE. > Looks like you were exactly right about Intel positioning themselves for CPU-centric set-top boxes. (I do some consulting work for a mpeg chip company). But now it looks like the StrongARM is better suited for these purposes, and that it will be the chip Intel uses to target for that market. A few weeks ago you gave estimates for Celeron pricing: >Celeron...about $50 total - today. >...packaging costs...drop...370 pin PPGA >...move...to a 0.18 micron...silicon cost to about $25 or $30 >...$25 die cost, $10 in PPGA packaging...$35 overall Could you please make this kind of estimate for StrongArm. Earlier people were discussing their StrongARM capable of mpeg2 in software; and someone (you?) were speculating they would move this to the .25 micron fabs when cpu production moved to .18. I imagine it would be quite low if it runs on their "old" "obsolete" .25 micron fabs. If it's low enough that might be an extremely significant change to the settop decoder market currently using dedicated decoder chips from STMicro, LSI, C-Cube, etc. Any guesses what the cost would be, or hints how I could guess the cost myself, would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance, Ron