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

To: Kevin K. Spurway who wrote (42579)	12/2/1998 1:16:00 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574004

<If AMD is just buying a process from MOT or IBM, and that process is a good one, then it may be that Intel will have a harder time getting to .18u.> Wow, you make it sound like the 0.18 micron process being purchased from IBM and/or Motorola is just an issue of plug-n-play. It's very hard to know the extent of the AMD-Motorola technology-sharing agreement. Getting the technology is one thing; learning how to use it is another. And we all know AMD's record of execution, but then again, AMD may have learned its lessons from the past and could do better this time. Tenchusatsu

To: Kevin K. Spurway who wrote (42579)	12/2/1998 1:28:00 PM
From: Tony Viola	Respond to of 1574004

Re: "If AMD is just buying a process from MOT or IBM, and that process is a good one, then it may be that Intel will have a harder time getting to .18u." Motorola can't even keep up with the Swedish companies in the cell phone business. AMD is trusting their future to them? No choice, no doubt. IBM, a different story, IMO. It should be interesting. Tony

To: Kevin K. Spurway who wrote (42579)	12/2/1998 2:53:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574004

Kevin - Re: " it may be that Intel will have a harder time getting to .18u." As a matter of fact, inside Intel's "Museum" in Santa Clara, there is a host of engineers already singled out for Personal Achievement Awards for specific development areas of the 0.18 micron process. These awards have evidently been granted months ago with requisite time for picture taking, award presentation, and display construction for the Intel Museum. A reasonable conclusion is that Intel's 0.18 micron process development is essentially complete with current activity focused on yield improvement. In fact, at the Intel Analyst meeting last month - one day after the AMD analyst meeting - Sun Lin Chou - Intel's VP of Technology Development - presented a "foil" displaying the defect density of the 0.18 micron process vs. time along with the older 0.35 and 0.25 micron processes when they were being developed and ramping into production. The 0.18 micron process defect density - according to that graph - is nearly equivalent to the 0.25 micron process defect density when it went into production. Needless to say, the defect density curves for both continue to decline over time. In fact, Sun Lin's point that he tried to make was that the slope of the curve - Defect Density vs. time - was steeper (falling faster) for the 0.18 micron process than the 0.25 or 0.35 micron processes. For your reference, Intel is presenting a paper at next year's ISSCC on a 0.18 micron 16 MegaBit SRAM - which indicates that is the "test chip" that Intel is using for their 0.18 micron process development, debug and defect reduction studies. Paul

To: Kevin K. Spurway who wrote (42579)	12/3/1998 12:02:00 AM
From: Yousef	Respond to of 1574004

Kevin, Re: "It's easier to go out and buy a calculator than to develop the technology and build one for yourself." Now you are just being "stupid(er)", Kevin ... (To expand on your analogy), If you have been building calculators for the last decade (and have the fastest one), then there is much less risk in developing your own next generation calculator. However if you rely on another company to build your calculator, then if they slip schedule OR decide to get out of that business at some point ... You are left with nothing. It is clear that AMD is getting out of the process development "game". They are buying their technology for .18um from Motorolo. This is very risky and could "explode" in their face. BTW, process development engineers will start leaving AMD very soon. Make It So, Yousef