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 : IDTI - an IC Play on Growth Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hippieslayer who wrote (7027)	2/26/1998 4:45:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11555

AMD moved up over 3 today on the IBM foundry rumor. AMD is already having IBM do BGA (ball grid array) packaging for them. The impact on AMD's fortunes are probably being mis-calculated. First you need to start with a chip design that is highly manufacturable, then you can talk about producing it to advantage. AMD or Cyrix/NSM haven't been able to achieve very high of yields on their massive and complex Pentium class parts. AMD has reportedly been only able to achieve average yields of around 35%-40% with much fewer die per wafer than IDTI's C6. So if they move the production to IBM, that basic yield formula is unlikely to change. In fact, IBM may take several months, as was the case for their production with Cyrix, to get things tweaked to achieve even modest yields. REad down to the bottom of the article: "But some analysts were more cautious in their evaluation of the potential should a deal come to pass, noting that AMD's supply problem could be more complicated than would be solved by a simple addition of capacity. SoundView Financial analyst Scott Randall noted that AMD's production problems stemmed in large part from the fact that wafer yields -- the ratio of usable wafers after processing -- at AMD's plant were too low. ''If that's a design issue, you probably won't see a dramatic change with a foundry agreement with IBM,'' Randall said. ''In that case, people looking at this as a magic bullet could be jumping to the wrong conclusion.''