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Thanks alan, I looked but couldn't find what you posted. It takes 9 months to make a baby no matter how much the woman wants it out by the 8th month.
Not sure if I understand you question. Fixed/variable costs are in about a 70/30 ratio. So once your fixed costs are recovered the extra units produced don't have to carry that 70% of costs related to MG&A(Marketing, General and Administrative). The only costs that apply, above break even, are the variable ones (material and labor). As one would imagine running the fab flat out does wonders to the gross margins, as long as you can sell the stuff.
Probably just as important is that the non-DELL PCs ship without an OS. I'm assuming the DELL PCs ship with a version of XP.
Agreed, it's kind of a mixed bag. As a high fixed cost production facility approaches full capacity the last products cost practically nothing to produce. So once the fixed costs are recovered anything above break-even is almost all gravy. Also, if AMD can maintain its design superiority ASPs should increase as the demand for high end products increases. There is another factor that also comes into play; namely, as capacity becomes constricted the tendency is to produce those products that have the best margins at the expense of those products that have the worst.
While this situation tends to maximize profits in the short term, longer-term it would slow sales in markets like China where very low cost is a priority.
From my point of view, the current situation where AMD has a design advantage probably won't last forever. AMD needs to get to about 30% market share to ensure its long-term viability. Getting from here to there is going to be very tricky. The next couple of years look very challenging for AMD.
On the other hand, all this hand wringing may prove for naught if the world’s economies start to slow down, as it now appears. Having limited capacity in a down turn might turn into an advantage, we’ll see.
I hope your right, but to me it seems more likely AMD will be a quarter or 2 late than early. I think demand will depend more on macro economic factors than anything else. Well have to see what happens, but a 64 bit MSFT OS should remove the last barrier. Why would anyone buy a 32 bit chip if a 64 bit chip cost the same? Especially given the NX factor. The possibility for explosive growth in k8 demand seems real, unless the economy goes to hell.
Yes, I seem to remember something like that happening when fab30 was brought up. Was fab22 a "copy exact"? That would also help explain the speed with which the fab was brought up.
Well, as I said to Alan81, AMD doesn't have the resources to do a "Balls to the Wall", "Cost is no object" kind of build so it will undoubtedly take longer. All I can say is that I hope someone at AMD has thought this thing out completely and AMD has its butt covered as much as possible.
To me, the next year or so appears crucial in determining how well AMD is able to take advantage of their current chip design lead. Not being able to supply the market would be a setback not easily overcome.
AMD does have certain advantages, mainly that the original plant was laid out with another plant in mind, but it's still an enormous task. As far as money goes I don't think AMD will be doing anything on a cost plus basis though I wish they could. Agreed, rework is very expensive both in time and materials.
Thanks, that may help some. We'll have to see how things go, but unless there is a real economic slow down AMD is going to need production help if fab36 is going to have a market to fill when it comes online.
I would also be willing to bet that IBM isn't going to be too happy about producing chips for AMD for just 1 year. So I would expect that will be another factor in determining what design rules AMD brings fab36 up under and how fast fab36 ramps.
Yes, I'm rather skeptical of AMD's h106 plans for production, there are too many things that need doing just to get the plant up and running let alone bring up a new process also. I know development work on 65nm is being done at Fishkill, but I'll bet there will be lots of problems that need ironing out at fab36.
Because of the enormity of the project I really want AMD to take the most conservative posture possible covering their butts as much as possible.
The problem is that there may be a period of a year or more(mid 05 to mid 06) in which fab30 alone won't be able to meet demand. As IBM seems to be the only alternative to fab30 I sure hope IBM gets its shit together before AMD gets into a supply crunch.
Well, there's a huge amount of stuff that needs to be done at fab36 once the walls and roof are up. Things like the plumbing; a fab eats up an enormous amount of very pure water. Just running all the pipes is going to take a lot of effort. Then there's the electricity and the back up units. Just running the conduits is going to take a lot of time. Then there's the conveyors for the pods, the lighting, the elevators, the platforms for the equipment etc., etc. Dont' underestimate the time needed to fill the box.
Well it seems like where we differ is in our estimates of how soon AMD will run out of capacity at fab30. As I have said, given the need for AMD to start the marketing ramp to fab36 capacities, AMD is going to have to start increasing its market share using fab30 capacity ASAP. You just don't double production and expect to sell it all at once, there has to be a transition.
One of the unknowns affecting estimates is just how good AMD's 90nm production is. By that I mean primarily how well it compares to the current 130nm process, or how many good die are being produced at 90nm. Personally, I doubt that the number of good chips coming out of each waffer is that much more than 130nm, but the heat characteristics of the chips are probably much better making them more suitable for laptops. But I do expect the fab30 capacity issue to improve over the next year as the low hanging fruit is picked, just not as much as you seem to expect.
From the Smith Barney interview 2 things:
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=3795722
AMD is also seeing solid growth in its AMD64 notebook products, while desktop adoption is still relatively muted given the slight delay of the Windows 64-bit OS. AMD did remark that it would not be surprised to see its total AMD 64 (including Opteron) shipments reach 20 million units in
2005, which is slightly ahead of our forecast of 19.3 million.
AMD remains on track for reaching 50% of total MPU revenues on AMD64 by year-end, and crossing over in terms of units in Q205.
Me...
Depending on how you interpret the above AMD could need as much as 35m to 40M chips next year, something I think will more than max AMD's fab25. In q2 AMD is produced a little over 7m chips
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=3624125
Again I don't think the move to 90nm is going to be as fast as most expect
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=3714654
For one thing Sempron is still going to be on 130nm at the end of 05. For another die sizes are going to be increasing as the mix includes more A64's. Also, it is going to take some time for 90nm to mature.
So my estimate is that AMD is going to be hard pressed to produced 9M chips a quarter, on average, during 05. Maybe by the end of 05 they will be able to produce a few more, but as early as q2 shortages could start showing up (I know it's the slowest quarter) as production scheduling becomes more important. By 06 AMD might be able to produce 10m chips a quarter from fab25 at 90nm, but by then dual core processors should start to appear in volume so who knows?
I know AMD is saying H106 for production out of fab36 but frankly I doubt that's possible with 65nm. Given the lack of "magic bullets" and the difficulty in bringing up 90nm I see no reason to be optimistic about 65nm coming up on time. I fully expect that 65 nm will be prove more difficult than 90nm has as the reduced dimensions will only intensify the leakage and crosstalk problems not yet fixed in 90nm.
We'll have to see how things go, but it wouldn't surprise me if reality starts to bite AMD in the butt and we start hearing about 65nm delays. Having 70% of the 65nm work done is still miles away. It's that last 10% that takes all the time.
Well I'm obviously no process engineer, but I've been through these transitions at least 4 or 5 times. The companies set up these milestones they call design rules, but it seems that the process is much more gradual and evolutionary.
With the current problems related to unsuitable low-k dielectrics and electron migration I see no reason for AMD to be on the bleeding edge of things. I would rather see AMD buying the 65nm equipment but not push the processes.
Given the advantages displayed on the 130nm process over INTCs best at 90nm and the expected advantages of moving to 90nm/SOI along with the advantages of the K8 design, these should be able to keep AMD well ahead of INTC for the foreseeable future.
So far we have limited information about how well AMD's 90nm process is going. While laptop chips may be going into product no one has done any tests on them. Given the problems everyone else has had with 90nm I'm reserving judgement until I see more information. Also, given the way these moves usually happen I would expect plenty of low lying fruit at the 90nm level for at least the next 6 months to a year.
All in all I see no reason for AMD to rush into 65nm, especially given AMD's checkered history of production problems with new design rules/steppings. It seems like the problems of 90nm will only be compounded at 65nm, and I haven't heard of any magic bullets. The best thing that could happen to AMD is for INTC to have the sort of conversion at 65nm they had at 90nm. And yes I realize that a lot of those problems were related to the Prescott design. Still, as far as I know, Prescott will be INTC's main product when INTC is trying to move to 65nm.
Multi processor servers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/12/smp_revival_partone/
"The first thing that hits all of us, when you think about all this performance, is that a four-processor system in 2007 will deliver the type of performance that a 32-processor or 64-processor system can produce today," Waxman said.
Me ....
INTC is going to need something to fill those fabs.
Carlies revenge
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/technology/13hewlett.html?pagewanted=1&ei=1&en=bd974e768ce...
By midmorning, Ms. Fiorina had sent a memorandum to all company employees announcing that she had already replaced three top vice presidents in the Customer Solutions Group. The memo, mincing no words, gave perfunctory thanks to the fired executives for their years of service.
"Part of H.P.'s problem is structural," Mr. Sacconaghi said. "The company is in the midst of a shift from the sales of high-end, high-margin machines - units that have a 50- plus percent gross margins - to low- end servers, with a 20 percent gross margin. And when the high-margin stuff is not growing, and the low-margin stuff is growing, you've got a negative shift taking place."
Indeed, I.B.M. announced on Thursday that it was increasing its hiring worldwide this year to 18,800 new employees from its earlier forecast of 15,000. Most of the new hiring will take place in its consulting business, where it competes directly with Hewlett-Packard.
Me....
High margin I take to be Itanium/Alpha etc. and low margin I take to be Opterons. Simple solution, HPQ needs to sell more Opterons to make up the difference.
Stuff on fab36 and dual core
http://www.amdboard.com/
Ala Saxman
1) No, I don't think it will be the IBM 90nm process that fab36 uses, it will hopefully be the AMD/IBM 65nm process running at 90nm. Hopefully there are some synergies from the combined experiences of both AMD and IBM. Best app/form/design/process should rule no matter who came up with the idea. Fab30 is all 200mm although the requirements of 300mm production were well known at the time. So it is possible that fab30 could be converted to 300 mm should it be needed. When fab30 was developed 300mm was bleeding edge, now it is mainstream.
2) The last thing I read was samples 4q05 and production H106. Realistically, I doubt if fab36 will be ready for equipment before the end of the year. It's one thing to get the walls up it's another thing to get the inside finished. Look at how a house is constructed. It might take a week or two to frame it, but a couple of months to finish the insides. By that schedule they would start bringing in the machinery about the 1st of next year.
3) Personally, I want to see some IBM beef. Considering the number of delays IBM has had with Fishkill I really don't know how much faith we should have in their Processes. Which is one of the reasons why I'm very interested in how AMD's 90nm process is going.
4) Most of the 65nm equipment should be backwards compatible. I would expect AMD to bring up the first line on 90nm just to limit the number of variables. If that proves acceptable (binsplits/volume) it could provide any extra product needed and reduce the pressure to get to 65nm. In any case it would provide a fallback position in case 65nm has unexpected problems.
5) It remains unclear just what AMD plans are with respect to covering a production gap that should be starting to hurt by q205. Right now the only possible alternate production site that I can see is Fishkill. Maybe they could move the k7 production there, but I'm hoping that AMD's 90nm process works well enough and that the synergies developed were enough that Fishkill can handle K7 and K8 production. This again would reduce the pressure to get fab36 up and running and provide some breathing room.
6) In any case AMD can't just throw a switch and start producing double fab30s volume. The markets need to be greased for that sort of production increase. I doubt that fab36 will see full production until 2007/08 or later. A game plan is needed that allows for increases in production as demand warrants.
7) If fab36 comes up faster than expected and the costs of production are such that it makes sense to move all production to fab36 then fab30 could either be updated to 300mm for processor production or be used to make flash, or some combination. In any case AMD is going to be able to produce an awful lot of something.
That's something like what I'm hoping for. If the world economies are going to slow down, and the demand for processor chips is going to slow down, there's even less reasons for AMD not to hedge its' bets.
Incidentally, one of the things not talked about is the effect of the new 4 way and up servers on the total number of servers in the market. Used to be that something like 90% of the market was 1 and 2 way. I would expect that most servers would remain that way, especially as dual processors start to take off, but I imagine that a lot of the server farms, made up of hundred/thousands of 1 and 2 way machines will consolidate to "more way" machines in an effort to reduce costs. This could really affect someone like DELL that doesn't have the technology to produce anything but 1 and 2 way machines. Knowing Mickey though, he probably has a group of Indian engineers already at work on the problem.
Current Administrations view of world economics.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/040813/economy_snow_trade_1.html
Interesting that Snow wants the rest of the world to be as profligate as the U.S. Increasing the wealth of other countries is certainly one way that the U.S. standard of living could be maintained. The trouble is that the U.S. model is based on cheap energy. Since cheap energy is a dying commodity it's highly unlikely that the rest of the world wants to embrace a model where mothers drive their kids to school in SUV's.
What's much more likely is that the U.S. economy will adjust to the new realities of expensive energy. Until the cheap energy pie starts to increase in size again the size of the pieces available to all nations will continue to shrink. Obviously, the biggest eaters will feel the most pain.
$ needs to drop some more.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/040813/economy_gdp_revisions_1.html
I'm not sure just how much, but 10% to 20% doesn't seem unreasonable. One has to wonder how much longer the Chinese will tie the Yuan to the $. With their increasing oil bills it would make sense for them to up the exchange rate. This, of course, means that the fed will no longer be able to hide the reality of a soaring inflation rate and will be forced to attack inflation more directly. On the other hand the other half of the fed's mandate is to insure full employment, something not consistent with fighting inflation. All in all not a very rosy economic outlook.
The U.S. habit of living off the largess of others is something that will not be corrected overnight. Even if the Asian currencies that are tied to the $ adjust higher there is no guarantee that this will result in more jobs. We're going into what should be a rather tough period as the price of oil, in particular, zooms.
Actually jobs are not a problem what is needed is an attitude adjustment. Society needs to adjust to a future in which the standard idea of work no longer applies.
The real problem is cheap energy or more precisely, the lack thereof. With cheap energy all other economic and material worries fade into nothingness. Without it the world, particularly the developed part, is going to be in for a period of massive adjustment.
No way will we see product out of fab36 before q106. First samples will be in q405 at best.
AMD still seems to be saying fab36 will come up under 65nm rules, but I doubt that also. They may call it 65nm, but I bet it is really a lot closer to 90nm. It's going to take a long time to develop the markets that will take all the possible processors from a fully functioning fab36. There's no need to rush what has traditionally been AMD's weak spot, production. This seems even more appropriate to me since I'm not completely sold on IBM's capabilities. I'll feel better about things once IBM gets the bugs out of their Fishkill fab.
Until then I see no reason for AMD to be on the production bleeding edge given their design advantages they have over INTC.
As I recall it INTC has another price cut scheduled in a week or so. The cuts should give us some idea about the heat INTC is feeling. Peripheral information seems to indicate that the quarter should be good enough that neither company will feel the need to resort to excessive price cuts, but I'm still worried about INTC's inventory overhang. Still, AMD products are now differentiated enough that they may stand up better to INTC price cuts than they have in the past.
Undoubtedly INTC's problems lie in low-end inventory. With the Semprons AMD seems to have aligned itself better with the Celerons, and may be less affected. In any case the high-end seems immune given the lack of competitive product from INTC, both on the X86-32 and X86-64 sides.
It looks like AMD's laptop business is finally going to take off.
Too much good info there, we're going down tomorrow.
Kind of confirms everything said in the AMD CC. Meeting goals is one of the things the market looks at. I had forgotten how back ended q3 is. Those last 2 weeks in September are going to determine the quarter. If INTC starts feeling the heat, either because of AMD sales or market conditions, it could force them to have a fire sale at the end of the quarter. It wouldn't be the first time, especially if it looks like a lot of the inventory may be getting unsalable.
We're not out of the woods, but things definitely look good. My $.20 for q3 looks possible, but hardly a sure thing.
I've been waiting for this for some time, 802.11n.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&e=3&u=/nm/20040812/tc_nm/tech_wirele...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/12/802-11n_proposal/
It looks like yesterday’s pattern of AMD shares getting scarce below $11 is continuing today. Further, it looks like AMD's price has deteriorated to the point where there are a significant number of buyers willing to take a flyer on probably a short-term AMD gain.
Macro events still rule, but it's significant that HPQ's weak numbers haven't affected AMD as much as INTC. On the other hand DELL will probably meet or beat expectations so INTC will probably recover tomorrow.
I'm really looking forward to the INTC mid quarter meeting. It will be extremely interesting to see if INTC still has its' ducks lined up. Personally, I'm expecting INTC to lower estimates, but blame it on general market conditions, so AMD won't benefit any. But I can't shake this feeling that the fab30 knob has been turned to the right and things are going well. All these INTC chipset problems and high-end processor production problems have got to be hurting INTC sales. And that's without talking about the new cases and pin layouts which should be adding to the confusion.
It definitely looks like INTC's trying to morph into something new. The problem is I'm not sure that INTC has a clue as to what that might be yet. Lately INTC looks like a moth dancing about a flame, and we know what that flame is.
amd market share
http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/index.jsp?section=News&subsection=Business&subsection_code=1...
Speaking to CXOtoday, Sanjeev Keskar, country manager, AMD, said “Almost all top server OEMs today offer AMD Opteron based servers and workstations in India including HP, IBM, Sun and HCL. Many Leading enterprises in manufacturing, telecom, digital content creation, EDA and CAD/CAM have already adopted AMD64 technology based systems and the trend is only going to accelerate further in the future.”
Me...
Having 10% of the server market by year end, as is AMD's goal, would do wonders for the bottom line. It certainly would offset a lot of the increased costs related to fab36. As far as those costs go we should probably expect big increases in marketing $ as fab36 comes online. It's going to take a real push by AMD to displace INTC from the market share fab36 will be able to service.
We should get a better idea about INTC's inventory when we see what the price cuts are. INTC having an inventory problem is not good for the PC market, especially if the semi markets are slowing down. If so, what is INTC going to do with all that capacity they've added? How many additional chipsets would they have to make to get to full plant utilization? Maybe INTC plans on running their fabs at 50% capacity?
Gut wise, it does seem like the market is getting more receptive to the move to 64bit processors. Even without a MSFT O/S it seems like people are starting to realize that AMD64 is the future. Q3 is shaping up as a good test of NTC's ability to still control the markets. Gross/Net margains should provide interesting reading.
One thing I've been wondering about is where exactly; the big increase in inventory INTC has experienced over the last year is located. In particular, how much of the increased $427M in inventories in q2 is in sitting in the warehouse and how much is in the channels. It now appears that INTC is orchestrating a fire sale (pun intended) to reduce those low-binning Prescott inventories.
It further looks like AMD's response to INTC's flood of 32 bit chips may be a flood of A64 bit chips. This could well be a good test of the markets readiness to accept the move to AMD64.
In any case the news about AMD releasing more laptop chips seems to correlate with what Hector was saying earlier in the year about H2 being big for laptops. From my seat of the pants view it does look like AMD is selling more into every strata, but volumes and ASPs are the hardest things to figure out.
As far as fixed costs go. Even with the rather large fixed cost increases AMD has been experiencing it wouldn't take that many more sales of 64bit chips to cover most of those increases.
Personally, I've been slowly moving to the position that while revenues should continue to increase nicely, increased costs will pretty much match those gains until fab36 comes online. The new AMD motto might be "it's all about fab36". In other words I don't expect the kind of explosive earnings growth AMD experienced with the Athlons. The EPS race is turning into a marathon, not a sprint.
Looks like most of the "shock" selling is nearing completion. It's getting noticeably harder to find sellers at sub $11 prices. It does look like we're going to get a very down day on large volume though.
CSCO and NSM certainly gave the techs a kick in the balls. In viewing AMD, as an investment, the value of AMD has always been based on AMD's ability to take market share from INTC and on AMD's margins. Even in a down market there will be some stocks that go up. Any stock exceeding market expectations, in such a situation, usually does very well because investors are very hungry for any stock going contrary to the mob.
As AMD investors you have to ask yourself whether you think AMD is taking market share from INTC and what the margins will be. The analysts consensus currently is for AMD to earn $.14 in q3. If AMD is able to earn $.20 that should be good for a nice boost from where we are.
There's a wealth of information available on this board and others concerning AMD. It's just up to the investor to digest that information correctly. AMD is, and will remain, volatile but don’t lose sight of the fundamentals. Despite what it may seem, the world is not ending, at least not today.
Yah, this is a big boys game. Everytime the price gets over +$.33 the big boy stops buying and the price comes right back down.
OOPS. Looks like the buyers have decided to up the ante. This could get real interesting. I wonder how much money the boys have?
If this is a couple of really big players trying to corner the shorts this could go on for a couple of days, or until the shorts capitulate. We'll see who has the biggest cajones.
Interesting tug of war going on.
Looks like a seller wants to get AMD down to +$.23 and it also seems like a buyer wants to buy below +$.33. This has been going on for some time. Currently it looks like the buyer has the upper hand.
Given the rather large short position the market holds in AMD, a dedicated big buyer or two could really cause some damage to the short holders. This would be especially true if the normal selling were to dry up, which it looks like it's doing.
Still it's nice to see AMD diverging from its usual pattern of folling the SOXX around like some homesick puppy. Even better is that INTC is down while AMD is up. We need more of this to show the market that this isn't your father's AMD.
What's happened to the sellers?
Strange day; AMD is up on low volume. Petz, over on SI, has a nice table correlating recent volume with up days.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=20396644
Given the low volume one can hardly make a case for a buying frenzy, looks more like we just ran out of sellers in this price range.
If volume doesn't pick up we could have a violation of the recent volume/price pattern.
Still it's nice to see AMD and INTC diverging in the right direction. Maybe it has something to do with the INTC down grade?
K7 life expectancy
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17781
The "New Gateway"?
http://www.smartmoney.com/barrons/index.cfm?Story=20040809
ala Saxman
Chevyman update
HP will have out its DL380 opteron box in December while it will intorduce 2 and 4 way blade Opterons in Janurary. Engineers shared their enthusaim for the Opterons and stated that they know the 4 was Opterons are faster than the Intel 8 way boxes. They are also not pleased with the current Nocona from Intel. They are expecting great things from the Opteron. I asked about using 2-4 way boards connected via hypertransport to create an 8 way Opteron and they smiled and said "sure that works and is what the extra CHT buses on the processors was for". Looks like good times are ahead..we just gotta hang in there.
chevy
On the highway, at speed, the internal combustion engine is very efficient. Where the internal combustion engine bogs down is in stop and go traffic. There the electric engine is much more efficient. There are costs associated with a hybrid system not full appreciated by the public yet. The biggest is probably the limited lifetime of the batteries. Added complexity is another factor.
While the hybrid is a step in the right direction, in the end we still run out of oil. We need to start the search for something better than oil now, and big-time.
Yes, that will undoubtedly be a consequence; there will be a lot of others consequences including the way we live.
If you go to Europe, where oil is a lot more expensive, you will find cities surrounded by agriculture belts. This means that agriculture is nearer its' markets. The cities are, for the most part; small with most everything needed close at hand. The public transportation is much better with the cities connected by high-speed rail. The need for an auto is much less pressing than here.
This is the direction I expect the U.S. to move towards. Of course it won't happen overnight but in the end, if we don't find a cheap energy source, economics will rule.
Personally, I think the cheap energy solution is there, it's just going to take a major effort on our part to find it. Not having funding is likely to put off the effort until we're in the usual 3rd and long position. This in turn will probably lead to a lot of rather nasty and unexpected consequences not currently fully appreciated by the U.S. population.
A couple of things;
1) AMD used to hedge against $ fluctuations although it appears that they risked more exposure last quarter. Personally I think the $ is still way over valued. The list of things we can trade for a barrel of oil keeps getting smaller. To me the real threat in the 21st century is not terrorism but the lack of cheap energy and water. Just think what could have been accomplished if we had invested in energy R&D instead of Iraqi oil that may never get to the pumps.
2) There are only 2 players in the X86 CPU game, both selling in $'s, so things like a weak/strong dollar are less important relative to other factors.
3) All the cheap oil has been found. While there may be more of the stuff around new sources are going to be a lot more expensive to get to.
4) Demand for oil will increase until the price of oil is competitive with other competing products.
5) The amount of oil in the world is finite and we're using it a lot faster than we're finding new sources.
6) Other countries, in better shape economically than the U.S., are going to be competing with the U.S. for the remaining oil reserves. And since the uses they will put the oil to will be better economically than the uses the typical U.S. barrel goes to, there will be that leveling of the field also.
The good news in all this is that public transportation is going to get a lot better, and the freeways will be a lot less congested. Not so good for the automakers though.
I sure hope someone wakes up and realizes what the real problems are. The U.S. way of life with its far-flung suburbs all dependent on the auto are a recipe for disaster in an energy strapped world.
In a way this should be good for AMD as communication, without ones physical presence, will become a lot more important.
Don't worry I'm pretty much in the here and now. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Hope it's not my evil twin talking.
As far as digging myself in too deeply, how deep a pit are you thinking about? I'm probably way past what you would consider unsafe. Actually, at this point I'm thinking about digging a little deeper. If it just wasn't for those pesky macro economic thingys.
I do appreciate the concern for my economic well being you express though. It's probably a little misplaced, but it's the thought that counts.
I'm thinking that AMD will be about 1 quarter late with the $.20 I expected last quarter. The low-end price cuts last quarter really messed up my expectations. This quarter even with the lowering of A64 ASPs AMD should be able to make it up on seasonal volume and then some. However, I could easily make a case for a much better quarter if things fall into place. On the other hand...
What I'm really hoping for is that all the 90nm stuff started last quarter will be in addition to the usual volume plus the new Sempron stuff. Of course that means AMD would have had to of known about increasing demand, something they were very reticent to talk about in the CC. So who knows? Still $.20 seems conservative and relatively doable.
good points EOM