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Keith
AMD has a lot of catching-up to do here
In terms of CPU, not so much. With its ULV-Athlons (under the Geode-Brand) they have a CPU close to Banias in performance terms and absolutely comparable in power-consumption.
Now that AMD has already demonstrated it is capable of making ULV-parts, you can safely expect this to happen for Bartons as well, and for K8-130nm anyway. I would assume they are couple of month away from ULV Bartons and as well from ULV-K8s. (I heard AMDs statement "we need 90nm for that", but I see K8s progressing in terms of Voltages coming down that an ULV-K8 in 130nm seems to be imminent for this year already.
But this all does not help much: They got to find somebody who dares to make appropriate platforms for these CPUS - and another one designing nice notebooks adding appropriate components. These are the more difficult parts of a competive approach on Centrino. I'm not talking about technological problems, to prevent from misunderstandings.
K.
keith
I would assume Hector referred to # of Servers or CPUs sold (not $-terms), and certainly including AthlonMP.
Apart from that, neither Gartner nor IDC have access to data beyond the 10 or 20 biggest server-distributors. There is a lot of Opterons sold below that line that nobody can really count except AMD.
As for the forecasts, i would expect more of the volume-growth will be eaten up by declining prices than these chaps consider in their forecast: Until now, Intel could compensate (or even overcompensate) declining prices delivering a richer mix. From next quarter going forward, I dont see the product range top-end-extensions further allowing this. As for pricing pressure, I look at the X86-part of the server segment as currently being only in the very beginning of becoming a competitive market and consequently expect accelerating pricing-dynamics going forward.
K.
Keith Thanks eom. K.
i_banker
Sun recently made this statement: "Opteron is a positive surprise... cannot meet demand currently"
K.
yb
I have no clue what their estimates are. I only see what they are publishing. And I noticed Clark Westmont left the firm, publishing a different opinion for his new firm.
As for the rest, well, there is always somebody namecalling, whatever call you make for whatever stock. Its part of an analysts role to cope with it.
K.
rupert
buggi has: http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0005007/amd3.pdf
K.
rupert
But for the balance of the year, IC Insights believes the flash market will show sequential quarterly market growth of 5 percent, 9 percent, and 6 percent, resulting in 45 percent annual growth for 2004......"
Well. Basic math does not seem to be a core competence of IC Insight.
Apart from that, I agree in their headline.
K.
dacaw
"Well I expect to see these in thin'n'light laptops very soon."
Notebook = CPU + platform + design.
I can see a CPU. You seem to see lot more than me?
K.
cj
Now if AMD can only put it in a uBGA package...
They sure could have done this. They intentionally avoided packaging for Socket A which I am sure they have good reasons for.
Geode1500@6W is a tricky, sophisticated move. What exactly is intended with it will unfold only later. *) Btw, mainland China is a nice place to travel to, preferable to Taiwan in this time of the year.
K.
*) A propos "unfold only later": More than two years ago I was fairly disappointed about Thoroughbred showing up speced @256KB L2. Today, we see the second part of the game plan for this process.
Petz
The last two quarters. See K10 for 2003 and Q10 for the last quarter. K.
borusa
Could be. Could be it was the RDRAM(!)-Controller as well.
I have no idea what killed the project, not even if it was for technical issues or business reasons. Whatever it was, you are right, Intel made a ton of money with P4 since then - and counting.
K.
Reseller Mike
Interesting. I mean to see best availability for a product not even listed in AMDs pricelist anymore.
Fairly save to predict there will be another note in AMDs Q-10 for this quarter saying they had two-digit millions of revenues from previously written-off dies.
K.
mas Absolutely. (eom)
mas
Thanks for posting the link. As it seems to be trendy to use automobile-analogies these days, A-64 (in Europe) could easily be perceived as the turbo-diesel-engine of PCs.
I would like to see couple of dozen pieces like this in the print-media in Europe.
K.
rupert
"....,in general, to raise ASPs."
GM Max! would be the better rule to follow in general imo.
K.
borusa
Timna-design had an on-chip grafics-controller as well. I'm not sure it was acually based on P3, assuming the design been determined before P3 taped out.
K.
paul
I see. Anecdotically, I've recently been to a horse-show (in Dorset) where it was not just trendy to show up in a Landrover but literally mandatory.
Well, i'll be fine if perception of AMD-64 develops like that; its contrasting nicely to the value-skewed Cheap-Charly-perception of AMD´s products.
K.
rupert
Well, yeah, wrt Intels BMW-models analogy, why not stretching this one
Thanks
K.
rupert
thanks for posting. Just curious, I know "SUV" as Sport and Utility vehicle, which sort of does not fit into the context.
Anybody could enlight me here?
Thanks
K.
doug
While you are right with everything you mention, you are focussing on some parts of the equation which support your intuition.
I like the implication of your post of a dynamic viewpoint. But then, you got to consider process development as well, shifts from Thoroughbred to Barton, production sweetspot binsplits, yields etc. Now, admittedly, it needs a grip of how semiconductor manufacturing works in terms of working the process down the learningcurve to understand that Hectors "claim" about GM is exactly what you would expect.
K.
yb
Before Hiroshima, few people could imagine what it does. K.
doug
Gross margins. Not my claim, Hector´s K.
yb
Counterintuitively, even with ASPs of AMD-64 being threefold AthlonXP, AMD-64 has lower margins than AthlonXP.
K.
joe
We don't know how many they ordered
50.000 have been rumoured a while ago. But then, if correct, we still dont know for which period and delivery dates this contractual figure applies.
K.
rupert
Today's price action for Intel seems to indicate that the market has bought this story.
Guess the street just showed relief that Dothan launch, the echos on it and couple of noteboook-announcements mean hope not everything is broken in Santa Clara.
K.
Tenchu
Reality is subjective ...
I dont want to miss this rare opportunity: I fully agree.
K.
rupert
Interesting...
Reuters would not run this title without having more than they actually post in the article, I would think.
K.
I_banker
Followup on the Intergraph-settlement, AMD expensed 9m of this years total (up to) 15m in Q1.
(Source: Q-10)
K.
rupert
AMD to set up Thai subsidiary
Praise for Govt's ICT PC project
Tony Waltham
AMD is likely to establish a Thailand subsidiary to market its microprocessors here very soon and has already begun looking for staff, according to AMD's Asia Pacific director of marketing, Sam Rogan, who was speaking on the first anniversary of the introduction of AMD's Opteron 64-bit server processor last week.
He added that he hoped that by doing so, AMD would offer a better service and would enjoy better communications with the Thai Government "by having Thais based in Thailand" who were working for the company, which has its head office in Sunnyvale, California and production as well as test facilities in Europe and Asia.
"There is a very high probability that within the near future AMD will have an office in Thailand," he said.
The Thailand market was strong, and in South Asia Thailand was clearly leading the way in terms of technology adoption, Mr Rogan said, praising the ICT Ministry's budget PC project. "The only problem was that this was not spec'd to support AMD," he added.
But he noted that this had been because AMD had not been involved in drawing up the specifications and, as a result, AMD had chosen to partner with Atec Computer, a leading Thai PC manufacturer, which was doing something very similar, he said.
"We love Thailand's ICT project," he said, adding that it was visionary and now countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam, along with the Organisation for Islamic Countries, were doing something very similar.
"But we think that it needs to be fair enough to include AMD," Mr Rogan added.
At an event to mark the first year of the AMD Opteron 64-bit processor here last week, Mr Rogan also indicated that AMD would introduce a "value brand" of 64-bit processor very soon. He said that early adopters in the field of computer gaming had been a big driver for 64-bit processors on the desktop.
Mr Rogan suggested that when Microsoft introduces its 64-bit version of Windows XP here in the second half of this year, there would be a lot more 64-bit applications. This would allow AMD to differentiate its offering from that of Intel, he said.
He said that AMD's 64-bit Mobile Athlon, its Athlon64 for the desktop and Opteron 64-bit server processors would enable pervasive benefits across enterprises by allowing for a standard platform and providing a migration path to 64-bit computing.
He also pointed out how the AMD64's "on board' technology presented an innovative approach to 64-bit computing.
AMD's 64-bit computing solutions had been revolutionary a year ago, he said, but now they were evolutionary, with the company winning more partners over, with three of the four large systems suppliers _ IBM, Sun Microsystems and HP _ now providing high-end systems with AMD 64-bit Opteron.
Asked about Dell, Mr Rogan said that AMD would have to take more market share and put that company in the position where it would need to be able to offer an AMD processor option to avoid losing market share.
The move absolutely makes sense. Trying to make inroads in Asian countries needs locals. AMD has done this successfully in China already.
K.
buck wheat
Bill Siegle recently stated in an interview that they are doing a plain shrink first (same number of layers) and going for design changes in a major new stepping lateron, adding two interconnect layers.
As far as shrinking cache cells are concerned, Jerry Moench mentioned they see threshold-voltage fluctating a lot for smaller cache geometries. Could be the reason they are not able to build similar cache densities as Intel and others.
Finally, as for die-specs and real-estate numbers rumoured, I put them in a barrel of salt. There should be samples of 90nm chips in the wild very soon, so its only a question of when somebody opens the case and uses a ruler.
K.
keith thanks K. eom
keith
Where do you have the specs from?
http://support.fujitsu-siemens.de/KnowHow/DE/Produkte/AMILO/Vergleich_Amilo_A.htm
Outdated?
K.
Paul
Heads up! Looking forward to see you back and keeping my fingers crossed for you until then...
Klaus
muzohub - ok K. eom
Analytical Arithmetics by Yahoo
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ao?s=AMD
Shows one UPGRADE last week brings the Mean recommendation DOWN by 0,1 for this week from last week.
I really thought these Pentium-Arithmetics-issues have been resolved.
K.
NaS
Thanks for the historical episodes, I was not aware of that.
Apparently you didn't deal with Windows 95 much then
True. I could not tell which version(s) I used.
I did not really like it because of these blue screens. But it was good enough to get me away from a lot of legacy, made me spend a lot for new software in these times. No USB, iirc I had my first USB-device in 2000 only. (I am not really an early adopter of most of IT-stuff. AMD64 is an excemption, because I will probably use the product that I bought end of last year for some four years)
K.
joe,
i completely agree, and yes, it would not be the very first time two companies act in a collusive way in boths best interest. But I dont think its necessary to take it into consideration for the case of AMD-64.
What I somewhat miss is that the reason for the delay is most probably much easier: Windows-64(AMD) has some issues (for specifics see appropriate NGs). Better MS kinks the very most of these out before release, otherwise the product will be in risk to be avoided.
From this viewpoint, a delay of the release would be in the very best interest of AMD as well: Imagine what a premature release of an MS-OS would do to AMD-64 if it would be avoided (and what it would do to the AMD-Common as well).
I really prefer MS to take as much time as necessary to make it work flawlessly. Also, this time is not "wasted" from this viewpoint: In a year, there will be WXP64-applications ready to demonstrate the benefit of AMD64 to users which will help very much in terms of time for broad adoption. Wich is what MS and AMD really want.
K.
doug - ok K. eom