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 : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scumbria who wrote (74739)	2/27/1999 3:04:00 PM
From: Amy J	Respond to of 186894

Re: Maybe AMD could do the toaster? i.e. Hot high voltage CPU toaster. Amy J

To: Scumbria who wrote (74739)	2/27/1999 9:48:00 PM
From: Gerald Walls	Respond to of 186894

If you are basing your investment decisions on the concept that AMD can not design competitive microprocessors, you are making a serious mistake. A safer bet is that they just can't make them.

To: Scumbria who wrote (74739)	2/27/1999 11:39:00 PM
From: Fred Fahmy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Scumbria, <If you are basing your investment decisions on the concept that AMD can not design competitive microprocessors, you are making a serious mistake.> The bold words really are the key aren't they. Competitive is a relative term. I have always maintained AMD design engineers have done an admirable job remaining competitive on certain levels (i.e. lower levels). Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between designing a product and selling it. Selling means that in addition to designing a "competitive" product you also have to be able to manufacturer it and market it. This is where AMD has suffered. AMD's storied yield problems say a lot about their manufacturing processes and engineers. Of course the manufacturing engineers could always insist that the design isn't manufacturable <ggg>?? AMD's marketing strategy has been seriously flawed. Instead of trying to take a small piece of the pie and let it grow with the industry, they got greedy....worse yet....they got stupid. They initiated a pricing war with an industry titan in an attempt to gain significant unit volume share. The results of this ill-advised strategy is more red-ink and a pissed off giant. This giant can take down prices at will or at least until they are equal to AMD's. Jerry and the 25% gap have been key to AMD's demise. I love Jerry! FF

To: Scumbria who wrote (74739)	2/28/1999 12:59:00 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Scumbria, Re: "If you are basing your investment decisions on the concept that AMD can not design competitive microprocessors, you are making a serious mistake." I would base my investment decision on a company's ability to design+manufacture+market+sell the product and on their vision. And I wouldn't isolate the engineering phase to just design. Designing the chip to be efficiently manufactured is something AMD does not do well. AMD must take a lot of short-cuts in their design phase, which shows up as problems during their manufacturing. Not worrying about high-yields, electromigration, Hot-e, Self-heating, etc. problems would make your design a lot simpler, so less designers would be needed. That would be good for getting competitive samples out, but possibly not good enough to help their bottom line. Amy J