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To: Paul Engel who wrote (50700)	3/17/1998 2:01:00 PM
From: Barry Grossman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, I bumped into my AMD friend last night and it was quite interesting. He was evidently pleased to mention the IBM production deal to me and of coarse I had to ask, "and how are those production problems coming?" to which he said that they think they know what the problem is and they are working on it and think they have it solved. "Working on it?", I said. He said he hasn't seen a current report on it lately...... I asked when they were going to make some money. This year? No comment. That's when he brought up the AMD/IBM thing. He said that he thinks that AMD has missed their "window of opportunity" and that a possibility/result down the road may be an outright purchase of AMD by IBM. I poo-pooed the idea but he thinks it could happen. He seemed to think that this was a very real possibility. I asked if there were anyone else that he could envision as possible candidates. He had no other suggestions to offer. I told him that at some point they would run out of money and said that anything could happen. He just smiled. FWIW. Barry

To: Paul Engel who wrote (50700)	3/17/1998 2:22:00 PM
From: Gary Ng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, How about this ? zdnet.com Jobs said Intel needs a 800MHz PII to match the performance of a 400Mhz G3 in copper technology. Gary

To: Paul Engel who wrote (50700)	3/18/1998 3:38:00 AM
From: Yousef	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, Re: "Basically, IBM's much vaunted Copper Metallization technology, with its added expense and process difficulty, is comparable in performance, at the 0.25 micron level, with Intel's Aluminum based process." I would like to add my two cents on this topic ... and ... I am more pessimistic on Intel's position with regards to Copper. M. Bohr gave a paper at the Dec '95 IEDM conference addressing the role that frontend device capacitance (gate, S/D and overlap) and backend interconnect resistance/capacitance play in determining the speed of circuits in various generations of technology (.5um, .35um, .25um, .18um ...). His calculations predicted that at roughly .25um, the interconnect delays (RC) were equal to the device capacitance delays while for each new generation (.18um, .13um ...), the interconnect delays became more and more important in actually determining the ultimate speed of a CPU. At that time, Intel decide to solve this problem by reducing the interconnect capacitance with Low K dielectric materials. This has turned out to be very difficult with many integration issues and might not be available for .18um technology. Copper damascene processing provides a number of benefits (some you have described): 1) Lower sheet resistance and thus lower resistance for small metal lines 2) Electromigration reliability issues are not a factor (unlike for Aluminum) 3) Potentially, much lower cost !!! This is due to a simpler process (no more dielectric CMP and dielectric dep gap fill issues) ... AND ... much better yield due to CMP of metal versus etching. This could be the compelling reason to go to Cu interconnect (cost/yield) Another fact is that IBM is indeed much further ahead in this technology than Intel. At .13um technology, Intel will have to use this technology to solve the technical problems #1 and #2 above. I agree that Intel will be able to hold their own on performance at .25um and even probably .18um, but they need to get seriously working on this NOW. (Inside word is that this is a very high priority now at Intel) IBM is a very serious competitor from the performance standpoint ... reviewing technical papers, IBM is Intel's equal in devices and IBM has a definite advantage in interconnect. Intel continues to have a significant advantage when it comes to high yield in volume manufacturing ... and Intel does have lower wafer/part costs at this point (.25um). It has been interesting to me to see all the companies "flocking" to IBM as a foundry. I have been stating on a number of threads (AMD, CYRIX ...) that the Far East foundries are no match for Intel's device performance at .25um ... I think this mainly explains the surge of IBM business. I wouldn't take IBM lightly ... though I am not sure how AMD, IDTI, NSM will make money contracting out the Fab'ing of their CPU's. Just my thoughts, Yousef