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Dual Processors
Everything AMD has said about fab36 seems to point to a late 05, early 06, period for samples. Realistically then that means we shouldn’t expect real production until H206.
Although INTC seems to be pushing for H205 as the period during which the mass introduction of dual processors will occur, it's more likely that the product will be introduced as a high end product and slowly move down the feed chain. For sure the chip will be larger, though not that much, and that's assuming there are no production delays. In any case this schedule should dovetail very nicely with fab36 production coming on line so this shouldn't cause any capacity problems at AMD. Also AMD has indicated H205 for dual processors on 90nm so at least a matching product should be available.
I'm wondering how IHT will work on dual processors. Particularly if it will cause further heating problems when activated, and if it will even be needed?
It still seems like INTC is going to have a huge amount of extra capacity to do what with?
Looks like INTC is now firmly in lockstep with AMD.
Just a couple of steps behind.
Virtually everything INTC has tried in the last few years, with the exception of Banias, has been jettisoned in favor of whatever AMD was doing. Talk about a condemnation of INTC management. Barrett and Otellini have to be the sorriest examples of management I've ever seen.
Any company, other than INTC, wouldn’t be in existence today if they had committed the number of egregious decisions INTC has committed over the last few years. I find it almost unfathomable the way the press continues to eat up the lies INTC management feeds it.
Not satisfied with blowing off a few toes INTC has now decided to amputate below the knee. How on earth can this be good for INTC? Doesn't anyone, in the press see how many problems this is going to create for INTC?
Well, if AMD doesn't succeed now they certainly can't blame it on INTC. INTC seems to have tied both hands behind their back and chained what's left of their feet together. Right now it looks like they're hoping on the one remaining good leg towards the end of the pier.
DELL nanosecond
Well, we still have no idea how long a DELL nanosecond is, but for sure it's a lot longer than Mickey thought a few months ago. I wonder if this is a clue to how the new INTC marketing system will work? Maybe they will just substitute nanoseconds for Ghz. Under that system a couple of nanoseconds should be enough to run programs that take a couple of years to complete.
I can see the marketing now, "Guaranteed to run your slowest programs in less than 5 nanoseconds".
It's almost mind-boggling that INTC management is allowed to run the company (into the ground) the way they have.
It looks like the days of INTC management (Barrett and Otellini) being able to brush off one incredible mistake after another with the broom of profitability are coming to an end. This one is really going to hurt.
Is that the crackling sound of boiling Canola oil I hear?
Home PC's strongest future challenge
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8521855.htm
Looks like a bad case of acid reflux. Take a Pepcid AC before you go to bed, you will feel better tomorrow.
Maybe their just little black thingies and don't really have anything to say?
Why not just buy the smallest filter/filters at Home Depot and Scotch Tape it/them in front of the intake/s. Actually, there are probably better filters that can be mounted on the outside of the case with a little ingenuity.
I opened my case after 3 years and I was surprised how little dust there was inside, and I run my machine constantly. Maybe it had something to do with the fan on the heatsink not running? I don't know how long that was going on, but I replaced the heatsink/fan, used a hand vac and compressed air to clean everything up.
The way if figure it I shouldn't have to worry for probably another 5 years. DOS works great too, these things never wear out. You know that once you get by the burn in they work forever.
I'll know bottom when Shaq O'Neal stops kicking me in the balls with his size 21's and jumps on me as I writhe on the floor. I know it's kind of a strange way of picking bottoms but it works.
Nothing like losing money to improve one's disposition. I've got some cash I set aside just in case we got another unanticipated buying opportunity. I think I'll wait until I see some more evidence of a bottom before I jump in.
What’s going on
And I don’t mean the 70’s song by Marvin Gaye? Well, as you might guess I have my own ideas.
The extreme volatility of AMD stock supports the idea that the market views AMD as a Roman candle. That is, when times are good the company burns bright as a star, but the rest of the time it’s one step away from the morgue. Ergo, when times are good, as they are now, then AMD earnings should be great. I know q1 earnings beat analysts estimates by a ton, but evidently the market was expecting much more, probably in the $.20 to $.30 range. Extrapolating further, from the markets view, since earnings haven’t been that good when times were good, it probably means that AMD has peaked and will soon be returning to its’ usual imitation of the walking dead.
This is one reason why I don’t expect the price of the stock to go up much even though I expect AMD to earn in the $.20 range this quarter. In fact with anything less than $.30 in earnings the stock will probably stay below $18, but macro events will probably have more to do with AMD’s price than anything AMD does. All super earnings do is let AMD into the game, the SOXX has to cooperate also.
Anyway the market view I expressed is of the “Old AMD”. Most of us could easily list 20 things that are different between the “Old AMD” and the “New AMD”, but it’s going to take time before the market understands “Promise Less and Deliver More”. If I’m correct what Hector is asking the market to do is value AMD the same way it values INTC. That’s something that’s only going to happen after a long period of sustained earnings.
In the meantime, as far as the market is concerned, it’s a “show me the meat” thing. The SOXX will continue to play a much more important role in AMD’s stock pricing than anything AMD does. The only thing that would alter this scenario is earnings the market considers truly exceptional. Otherwise it’s going to be a long time before AMD gets out of the dog house (K9?). Steadily improving earnings will improve the perception of AMD, but without exceptional earnings the price won’t jump the way some expect.
OT I guess if the Tec’s can argue endlessly about the heating and energy characteristics of this chip or that we can talk about convergence.
I fully expect to replace every piece of entertainment, communication and PC equipment I own at least once over the next decade. In fact replacement cycles seem to be getting shorter for almost every device in the home. And the devices that are replacing the older ones are always more sophisticated and complicated. Extrapolating on this trend it's not to hard to see a huge need for smart devices as the replacing inventions do more in smaller spaces and a nexus is created within the home.
The problem with CRT's is that as the size of the screen increases distortion becomes more and more of a problem at the edges. The deeper the CRT the easier it is to control the distortion, but the weight of the CRT becomes a big factor. 22 inches isn't bad for a CRT, but about a 36" screen seems to be the max you can go to without introducing too much distortion and weight.
There's a lot of different technologies out there now (CRT, Plasma, LCD, LCOS, DLP, etc.). Since there is no clear-cut winner, like CRT was for years, this is causing decision-making problems. While HDTV has come a long way, it's still in the chicken and egg stage with lots of people sitting on the sides waiting for prices to drop and a standard to emerge. With a single standard, or two, economies of scale and price drops would soon follow. Still, it does look like the hump has been crested and by 2006 HDTV should be pervasive.
Yah, there are a lot of people that think the best AMD can ever do is be a minor disturbance to INTC.
This could finally be the quarter that AMD gets some respect. I'm beginning to ponder just how much AMD is going to have to earn for that to happen.
Very OT.
I don't do too much hiking any more, but do ride my bicycle about 100 miles a week.
I used to go to CES in Vegas every year. About ten years ago they were demoing a $50k projection line tripler on a 10' X 10' screen. That blew me away. Even up close it looked great. At the time it took a room full of equipment to get the kind of picture you get on a high-end system today.
I have 2 wide screen TV's, but haven't taken the HDTV plunge yet although about everyone else in the family has. If I buy a HDTV I've got to do something with one of the wide screens. Problems, problems. Actually, I'm thinking about a projection system since we belong to NetFlix and I don't watch TV that much. The projection systems do look nice and have the larger format. Of course they have the bulb life problems and work best in a dark room, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
What kind of system do you have?
I used to work in the Warner Center so I'm familiar with the Best Buy there.
I think your right, but I"m a worrier.
Nice. VOIP sure has taken a long time to get here.
Yah, HPQ has been conflicted. But lately they seem to be getting over it, or at least starting to compartmentalize Opterons and Intaniums into areas that don't compete.
That's fine with me as long as the Opterons get all the Xeon business. I can't remember whether or not Dell finally started selling Itaniums, but in any case I doubt if they sell many. Itaniums just aren't Dells' type of product.
Anyway, I don't see HPQs' selling of Itaniums as anything that would keep them from selling as many 1,2,4 and 8 way (eventually) Opterons as possible. There might be some crossover in the 4 ways, and probably the 8 ways, but we're talking about taking market share from Dell. HPQ needs to establish some priorities.
Dells' profits are mainly from its' business line, so HPQ has a real shot at doing some major Dell damage with the Opterons if they ever get off the stick and start pushing hard.
Actually, I think HPQ's reluctance probably has more to do with the long history HPQ and INTC have had. HPQ isn't ready yet, and divorces are tough. Like I said though, eventually, HPQ will get its' priorities straight. Maybe when AMD gets 90nm working AMD and HPQ will get past the heavy petting stage and start making lots of Opteron babies?
My worst nightmare is having INTC come out with a comparable or better AMD64 server product. That would really screw things up.
Thanks, I don't read all the posts. That must be really rare, I've only heard of spleens rupturing due to massive trauma.
OT Interesting. I live in Santa Clarita, but most of the famlily lives in West Lake. I've hiked in the Malibu Mountains a lot, and been in the park that abuts the MASH site a number of times.
Anyway, I didn't know the stations were putting out that kind of power although I had read that reception was up to 50 miles on an antennae. If your living in one of the Malibu canyons, you've got the same sort of terrain I have, I'm really surprised at your success.
I think I'll keep with the cable. I like the extra channels and the high speed internet connection. Now it they would just add VOIP.
Where do you live? With all digital signals, you either get the signal or you don't, no ghosting or artifacts. Of course you can still have dropped signals.
OT Gollem, you're one of the kids on the board aren't you? How did you manage to rupture your spleen, an auto accident?
Good point. Finding a solution that all parties can live with has been a fundamental problem.
Even with the Athlon, until about a year ago, AMD was an INTC tech follower. That all changed with the K8. But taking market from INTC, even with a clearly superior and differentiated product, is no piece of cake.
Even though market penetration has been slow it has been constant. One of the problems about living on the bleeding edge is that all the pieces aren't always in place. This has certainly been a factor in the slow transition to 64 bits.
Another thing has been the relatively slow uptake by the OEMs. I can't, for the life of me, see why HPQ isn't pushing k8 harder. Quarter after quarter we read that Dell is taking market share from HPQ yet HPQ refuses to wholeheartedly support k8, which has got to be their best weapon against DELL. I do believe though that HPQ is finally waking up, but probably due more to competition from SUN than DELL.
Anyway, in the meantime AMD has product to sell and is doing what it has to do to get the stuff out of inventory. Actually, given the stable to rising ASP's one would have to conclude that they have been fairly successful at it so far. Still AMD is producing more high-end stuff (A64's mostly) than the present market can digest without affecting high-end ASP's. So their doing the rational thing and down-binning it to lower price break points.
When MSFT finally gets a 64 bit OS into the market all this will change quickly. The challenge for AMD is going to be maintaining a differentiated product and the technical lead once INTC has an AMD64 compatible product to sell.
A little more enthusiasm, in actual product, not just verbal support from IBM would be helpful too.
OTA is fine if you have line of sight to the antennae. But if you happen to live in a valley, or have something blocking the signal, reception sucks. Even though I live near L.A., reception is still bad enough that I'm at the mercy of the cable and satellite guys. Then there are the 120 channels. What would my thumb do if I only had 10 or 12 channels to choose from?
Once you get past the obvious stuff in the article it’s worth asking questions about what this has to do with AMD. Some food for thought:
"Of course, the next-generation standards battle, involving various versions of MPEG-4 (and other flavors of the H.264 format) may prolong the HDTV transition process – especially as HD comes into home set-top boxes and/or media centers"
Me..
Are cable/satellite boxes going to be the best way to handle a constantly changing codex? In the last few years we've gone from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, and now H.264. This isn't going to be the last standard either. What happens when fiber to the curb becomes standard? Maybe a general-purpose processor that can handle any codex is going to be a better solution than getting a new black box every few years? And what happens if you have more than one HDTV? How many black boxes do you have to own?
Why not have the cable go into a PC capable of handling as many codex as you have viewing screens and then route the signals wirelessly to each viewer in the house. You could even set up TIVO kinds of things for each of the codex if the PC was set up with enough channels and storage (disk space/R&W DVD's).
Depending on how things evolve(Google model of storage on their Internet farms and dumb viewers connected through the Internet, or MSFT model of PC's in the home with lots of disk space/DVD R/W, lots of spindles, etc.) the PC business could be very different from today.
Could be, I've been waiting for AMD to do something with Geode.
It does sound like the chip would be logical in the T&L and smaller markets, besides the communication areas.
It's going to be interesting to see how AMD leverages its flash expertise into these products.
Didn't Bob Rivet,or someone else, say recently that there would be lots of notebook announcements soon? Anyone with a better memory than me?
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15560
Does this harken back to the thin client days? I wonder how this chip will be used? Could this be the first effort in what will become a family of universal chips imbedded in all "smart" devices that talks wirelessly to the "PC in a closet" and the wireless, portable "universal communicator" everyone will carry at all times?
PC's for most people are overkill. Why have a house full of PC's when one centrally located wirelessly connected processor, can handle all the storage, processing and Internet related needs of the whole household?
Nice to see another original thought coming out of AMD, but this is probably more AMD responding to a well entrenched user organization and partners than anything else. Still, as all forms of information and entertainment continue to transmogrify into the digital monsters of the future, this is probably represents another baby step along the way.
OT Life's a bitch.
Kind of puts the INTC/AMD thing we spend so many hours on in proper perspective. Few things are more important than one's health. Hope everything works out.
Interesting that AMD has 110nm flash working.
"Manufacturing problems are also believed to have affected memory chipmakers. Analysts say memory companies have had troubles shrinking the design features on their chips to the 110-nanometer level, leading to shortages and price jumps that are rippling through the computing supply chain."
There are a lot of differences in producing flash, dram, and processors at the 90 nm level, but AMD's success in flash is another indication that 90nm processor production is probably going well.
To understate the situation, success at 90nm is absolutely imperative for AMD to move to the next level. Even with 130 nm doing very well, on a competitive basis, having a 64b MSFT OS will make no difference if AMD can’t supply the market.
A couple of thoughts
I'm sure Hector realizes how inconsistent the Dell/INTC business model is with AMD's. I'm also sure Mickey wouldn't consider selling Opterons unless there was some sort of competitive advantage, something AMD isn't going to provide. So why the comments about Dell coming on board by next year?
Well, it does a couple of things. First, it highlights in a very public way, that Dell doesn't sell Opterons or any AMD products for that matter. It informs any user, thinking about an AMD product, that they will have to go to someone other than Dell. There's no sense in the user even contacting Dell and letting Dell try to bait and switch, or some other tactic.
Second, it puts pressure on existing partners to fill out their lines and make sure all available AMD capacity is accounted for. AMD is going to have a lot of 90 nm capacity coming on line very soon, and this is going to require the existing partners to take on more product. The biggest problem I see for AMD right now is a lack of demand for the A64's. HPQ/SUN are probably very receptive to a little Dell fear.
Personally, I think Dell is going to have to be hurting a lot before Mickey even starts to consider an AMD relationship. So far any Opteron damage seems to be largely theoretical, as Dell continues to grow at a nice pace. If Dell ever comes on board it's going to be a long way down the pike.
However, it's nice to see Hector playing the Dell card instead of Mickey playing the AMD card for a change.
"PC in a closet stuff"
MUMBAI: "Movies will regularly premiere in the US on cable and satellite, rather than in theatres within the next ten years."
http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k4/apr/apr138.htm
You've passed the initiation rite, you are now a fully indoctrinated AMD Bull, welcome to the club.
What I was thinking of, in reference to Alchemy and Wi-Fi, was that perhaps AMD plans to use Alchemy chips in T&L notebooks for say China. If so a Wi-Fi conect might make sense, but that seemed a rather remote possibility to me.
Still, AMD needs to come up with something in the T&L area for all those Chinese school kids that are going to be connecting to an Athlon/Opteron server in the school room. A wireless conect in that situation could make a lot of sense.
We could use an update on the China situation.
conflicting information about 90nm avaiability
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20040419071508.html
Me...
Of course Anton doesn't have much good to say about AMD, so who knows?
Ya, that's what I thought too, but the reference to Alchemy seemed too bizarre.
WiFi problems
http://www.whatpc.co.uk/Analysis/1154459
This sounds wrong, does anyone know if Alchemy chips come Wi-Fi-enabled? If so why? Or are they talking about a specific chip?
"On the hardware side, things are already quite straightforward. These days any device based on Intel's Centrino chip set or AMD's Alchemy is already Wi-Fi-enabled."
Thanks, I listened to the CC twice, but still picked up tidbits in the written transcript.
thanks EOM
Thanks, I didn't know that. How do you do things like underlining, high-lighting etc.?
the URL in the previous post should have been:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/InvestorRelations/0,,51_306_651,00.html
Good post
AMD has a couple of graphs that are very instructive:
Ahttp://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/InvestorRelations/0,,51_306_651,00.html
The ones that really indicate how AMD is doing are the last 2, The Capital Expenditures as a percentage of Sales by quarter and by year, and the R&D costs as a percentage of Sales by quarter and year. These two graphs really tell the tale. In a fixed cost business getting these 2 items as low as possible is of paramount importance as it directly affects AMD’s net margins. Of course you can't get too cheap and hurt your business plan, but the graphs vividly demonstrate the progress AMD has made.