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To: Monica Detwiler who wrote (74437)	2/25/1999 12:01:00 AM
From: Elmer	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 186894

Re: "Capacity crunch stymies Intel's StrongARM: Palm Springs, Calif. - Intel Corp. is notifying customers that supplies of its StrongARM embedded processor will be limited for up to six months. The shortage is causing some smaller OEMs to tighten their belts, although one large customer is reporting no delays in its order fulfillment." What this probably means is that Intel is lining up outside fab capacity to fill this demand. Intel is not about to use their top of the line process for a low margin product and they aren't about to increase fab capacity of their .35u process so they are probably contracting out and that takes time to bring up. EP

To: Monica Detwiler who wrote (74437)	2/25/1999 5:11:00 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Thank you Monica for this PR. This is valuable information. In response to your question, my interpretation is the same as Elmer's. This is because, while StrongARM requires the proprietary fabrication process of Digital's Hudson lab, they still could have accelerated the shift (as the PR implied) to the other Intel fabs. So, why didn't they? Probably because their other fabs' schedules were pretty full with their higher margin products. And that's good for Intel in the near-term. However, Intel needs to give the low-end a bit more of a priority since another semiconductor is betting the farm on the low-end (SJMN). Or, Intel may risk losing design wins, which long-term will be a bit of a pain for Intel to recover and to win back the trust of the companies in this market segment. Amy J