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.

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

To: Maxwell who wrote (34319)	7/12/1998 1:17:00 PM
From: Time Traveler	Respond to of 1572207

Maxwell, the pleasure is truly Time Traveler's to engage in deep and serious discussions. >>"AMD is a 'strategic' game piece for Compaq, IBM, HWP, etc"<< Nobody does care about AMD. Everybody only wants to make money. Dell is doing very well without AMD. If Compaq, IBM, or HP wants to bail out AMD, Dell would certainly not. Who would want to pore money into a sink hole? A buy-out of AMD only makes sense in terms of money making not charity. Also, with the debt growing ever larger, the $15 good-buy should be revised downward, well below the book value. Not to mention the Dresden fab, it would be a big burden for anyone operating an extra fab when semiconductor demand becomes soft. >>"FPU of K6-2 can take square root and division faster than Intel FPU"<< Does it really, how about other math functions which are just as important as the square root one? Are you also saying, K6-2 has a look-up table for taking the square root of unique constants? Petz and Time Traveler's former self went through that exercise a few months ago. >>"...reason why Intel will come out with Katmai"<< The reason is to improve the DSP unit, MMX, especially from single precision to double precision. >>"AMD just make the silicon chip, put it in a ceramic package, and test then done whereas Intel a) makes the silicon and package in a ceramic package and test, b) make a PCB daughter card, c) surface mount the resistors, CPU, SRAM, d) test the card"<< Time Traveler was talking about the motherboards which Time Traveler thought you were talking about too. Your explanation about probability to pass a device is way too simple and utopian. For example, in the first term, the probability number is very different between AMD's and Intel's. Fact: Intel is making money despite softness in Flash; AMD is losing money over all. Excuse: AMD's lost in this quarter (Q2/98) is attributed totally to softness in Flash, not at all to computation business. Time Traveler would have to say facts outweigh excuses. Intel's cost must be lower to achieve overwhelming profitability. >>"I [Maxwell] heard AMD has already ship these parts to key customers running well above 350MHz. You will see it in Q4. This chip is [going to be] faster than a Xeon of equivalent speed. It will be the world fastest socket 7 and will outperform the PII of similar speed or one speed grade above. Its die size will allow AMD to sell it at healthy $250. Consumers will think it a steal compared to any equivalent Intel parts."<< It sounds like another vaporware. There are so many will's. It also sounds like another hype reminiscence of K6 introduction. Do you recall? >>"AMD is late and must offer superior and cheaper parts to win customers back. Thus AMD must took the path they took to get the competitive advantage."<< No, there should be a better, easier, and more conservative way to win customers back. Losing money quarter after quarter like that does not make any sense. >>"AMD was in a quarter of product transistion. They were migrating form 0.35um to 0.25um. Q3 you will get a better picture."<< Not just Q3, we will see better picture in later quarters. Q4 will be more clear than Q3. Q1 will be more clear than Q4. The more anyone tries to calculate the cost of a CPU from more than half a dozen unknowns is fooling himself even more. >>"AMD lives on borrowed money. Intel got billions in the bank and can build a fab anytime at their disposal."<< The expense of capital equipment or facility does not matter whether the money comes from savings or loans. Expense is expense. The difference is that loans must be paid back with interest. Time Traveler