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 : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe C. who wrote (9568)	12/13/1998 11:55:00 AM
From: Peter S.	Respond to of 16960

Jeez, .25 is so yesterday. Industry leader (cough) S3 has announced .18 already... s3.com Santa Clara, Calif. -- December 8, 1998 -- While competitors remain focused on older 0.25 micron designs, S3 Incorporated (Nasdaq: SIII) and UMC Group today announced that they have successfully produced the graphics industry's first 0.18 micron design. Recognized as one of the most advanced processes in the world, UMC Group's 0.18 micron technology will enable S3 to deliver significantly higher-performing graphics accelerators that exceed even Intel's Pentium II processor in terms of gate complexity. "By breaking the barrier to advanced process technologies, S3 has surpassed every graphics competitor," said Ken Potashner, president, CEO and chairman of S3 Incorporated. "This technology lead gives us significant advantages that we expect to quickly pass on to our customers in terms of higher performance, lower power consumption and increased levels of integration." "Consistent and substantial investment in research and development has made us the undisputed technology leader in the dedicated foundry world," said Jim Kupec, president of UMC Group (USA). "Although we were not the first dedicated foundry, we were clearly the first to offer production capacity at 0.25 and 0.22 micron. Furthermore, our production volumes and yields at 0.25 micron are orders of magnitudes ahead of the competition. It is only natural that we will be the first to offer 0.18 micron capacity due to our successful relationships with industry leaders like S3." And so on. Peter S

To: Joe C. who wrote (9568)	12/13/1998 5:18:00 PM
From: Robert Scott	Respond to of 16960

I believe the .25 micron has to do with the width of the circuit lines so the thinner it is, the more lines can be drawn and therefore more circuits.

To: Joe C. who wrote (9568)	12/13/1998 6:37:00 PM
From: Eric Howard	Respond to of 16960

It takes more money and more time to design each successive process i.e. .35 -> .25, build the corresponding fab and put a design flow in place which works with it. 3DFX pays for each wafer they build and they can fit more of their .25 micron chips on a an 8 inch wafer then on .35 micron parts. A key number to look for, which I have never seen would be the number of square mils each graphics chip takes. The smaller the size of the chip, the more you can fit on a wafer and the less chance you have of a manufacturing defect messing up the die. Another critical piece of information which would great to know would be the yield, which percentage of parts that they fab are they able to use. If you can fit more chips on a die and you are getting a better yield off of each wafer it will make it seem that the Voodoo3 are built faster because you have higher throughput. Since the Voodoo3 will be at both 183 and 125mhz and both parts will be coming off the same line, the OEM parts should allow some overclocking, where as the retail ones probably will not. The difference in memory speed though will probably limit the overclocking since I am sure the memory used will not be coming off of the same production line. If Rampage is the dominant 3D graphics card when it comes out then I will buy one and I would pay up to $500 for it. One question I have though is whether I will need a Coppermine based computer in order to really use it. Eric