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

To: Kevin K. Spurway who wrote (31506)	4/8/1998 4:46:00 PM
From: Tiley	Respond to of 1573902

Kevin, Re: Processor roadmaps, You ask - "If PII at .25u could be pushed to 500 MHz or beyond, why would Intel plan to offer 450 MHz as their highest speed CPU for Q3, Q4" - the answer to this is simple. The current understanding is that AMD will not have processors running above 350MHz this year in volume. Intel knows this too. Intel will plan to be at least a couple of speed bins above AMDs offerings. The .25u process and the P2 microarchitecture can be pushed well beyond 500MHz. To get reasonable yields above 500MHz, they will need to fix some critical paths and perhaps tweak the process as it matures. This is very much in the bag (in my estimation). As I've said earlier, there is no compelling competitive reason for Intel to intro the 450 part now or else you would be seeing it with the 350/400 intro on Apr15. Besides, the roadmap is not something cast in stone. It is very much flexible and will change if the competitive roadmap changes. Intel knows that they will stay in control of the high end for the foreseeable future, especially with the intro of Merced and Willamette. To control the mid end, they will have to stay on the current roadmap. The low end is where the battle will be fought. Furthermore what you plan as the worst case for AMD (350 volume in Q4, 400 intro) is to the best of my knowledge the best case for AMD and there are ample obstacles in the way. AMD would be mildly profitable in the second half but it will not be anything to write home about. Best Wishes, - MJ

To: Kevin K. Spurway who wrote (31506)	4/9/1998 1:58:00 AM
From: Yousef	Respond to of 1573902

Kevin, Re: "By the end of this year, as a worst case scenario, K6-3D 350 will be out in volume and 400 will be in the process of introduction. More likely, K6+3D will be rolling out. If AMD can yield these products (which apparently it can, given the recent .25u process news) AMD WILL be profitable in the second half." Kevin as usual, you make too many assumption and ignore important data. First, AMD's .25um process is much slower (fundamentally) than Intel's due to NOT being aggressive with the FET device design. This is why AMD needs their .25um process just to hit 300mhz. A major redesign of the frontend process will be needed to get higher drive currents (Idsat) at even lower voltages. Re: " Remember its die size is about half that of the PII, so at the same yield, AMD possesses an ABSOLUTE COST ADVANTAGE over Intel for .25u products. That's how AMD plans to support a 25% discount to the PII." Kevin, another faulty assumption, AMD will NOT get to as high of yield as Intel on their .25um process. Defect density reduction (thus yield improvement) is driven by optimizing process parameters and reducing random and systematic failure modes/defects. This takes wafer volume to get more learning and to make improvements. Intel with their high volumes will almost certainly always have better yield (low speed) than AMD and will continue to have a large advantage in "speed" yield. Kevin, all your wishing and hoping won't change the situation ... Intel is the world's lowest cost producer for CPU's. Make It So, Yousef