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EDIT: Intel flash gains related to margins not market share?
__________________________________
Intel's recovering in flash memory
By Chris Kraeuter, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 7:50 PM ET June 3, 2004
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/default.asp?siteid=&avatar=seen&dist=ctmw
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Intel's flash memory business is on track again after suffering for more than a year, the company claimed late Thursday.
"We're starting to see a real change in the business rather than a one-time blip," Chief Financial Officer Andy Bryant said in a scheduled midquarter conference call.
The chipmaker (INTC: news, chart, profile) announced total sales for its second quarter would be between $8 billion and $8.2 billion, toward the top end of its earlier target range of $7.6 billion to $8.2 billion. Flash memory, Intel added, is the main driver of the increase. See full story about the midquarter update.
Shares rose 1.7 percent to $27.85 in late trading in response to the update.
Analyst Patrick Ho with Moors & Cabot said the flash memory improvement surprised him a little bit; he attributed the improvement to market share gains.
However, he believes Intel is downplaying some manufacturing benefits it is receiving in its core architecture unit, which makes up 85 percent to 90 percent of the company's total business.
Flash memory generally makes up between 5 percent and 8 percent of Intel's revenue. Flash memory is used in cell phones and handheld computers; it is inexpensive and can be quickly erased and reprogrammed.
Intel raised its margin targets slightly, but flash memory carries lower margins. Ho said if Intel was getting such a strong revenue boost from flash, its overall margin outlook should contract.
"We think Intel's efficiencies from 90-nanometer manufacturing are back on track and this is giving them the margin boost," he added.
'Real progress'
Flash memory accounted for $417 million, or only 5.1 percent of Intel's total revenue in the previous quarter. Still, the segment has been a focal point for the company because of troubles stretching back to early 2003, when the company pushed through an ill-timed price hike.
Customers then defected to rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD: news, chart, profile), which had beefed up its product lineup at the same time. Flash memory now makes up almost half of AMD's total revenue base.
At the end of 2003, Intel reorganized its flash operations. On Dec. 10, Intel announced the head of the flash division would retire and that the unit, formerly called the wireless communications and computing segment, would be folded into its communications group, which sold networking products.
The communications unit lost money all throughout 2003 and in the first quarter of 2004. Other products in the communications group include networking processors, Ethernet connectivity products, embedded control chips and optical products.
On Thursday, Intel said that its communications unit, led by flash memory, is doing better than expected. "We've made real progress in flash in the last six months," Bryant said.
During the first quarter -- typically a weak period -- flash memory units rose. According to Bryant, so far in the second quarter flash "looks like it will be a fair amount better than expected."
He declined to discuss any possible market share gains made during the current quarter, but he thought the company gained two to three points of share in the first quarter.
Intel's current quarter ends on June 26.
Chris Kraeuter is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco.
_________________________________________
EDIT
This CBS report sees through smoke by asking some fundamental questions or finding an analyst who did. It seems Intel claimed 2 or 3% market share gain in 1Q (when AMD leaped ahead in market share gain), but claimed no share gain in 2Q, and it also seems that its gains in 2Q revenue may have arisen from a reduction in its costs associated with improved 90 nm yields. The analysts quoted suggests that Intel may have "played down" this fact.
Intel BUY Business Week
Intel (INTC ): Maintains 5 STARS (buy)
Analyst: Thomas Smith, CFA
Intel guided June-quarter sales to $8 billion to $8.2 billion from the prior range of $7.6 billion to $8.2 billion; we maintain our model for $8.2 billion. The chipmaker also guided for better gross margin and taxes. We believe marketshare losses last year in flash memory are being recaptured. We are maintaining our EPS estimates of $1.27 for 2004 and $1.70 for 2005 and our S&P Core Earnings estimates of $1.07 and $1.50, respectively. Our 12-month target price is $42.
EDIT: I post this because it illustrates how Intel leads analysts around certain fixed ideas. We saw two analysts last week predict that Intel would report that it was recapturing market share in flash from AMD and one even mentioned large companies like Nokia. But the mid-quarter report never said any such thing. It said that it had improved revenues from flash and this was due in part to the expanding flash market. Blythly this analyst continues the myth. Either analysts just feed off each other, not checking, or Intel has phrased its private pre-report briefings in such a way to suggest to analysts that its improved revenues from flash are at the expense of other suppliers especially AMD.
Yields and Positioning of Athlon 64 Now and in the Future
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=543
AMD Helps USPS Cycling Team To Best Start Ever
http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=659
Overheated PCs mean hot business for cooling firms
Friday, June 4, 2004
"British medical journal The Lancet in 2002 reported the case of a man who used a notebook computer on his lap for about an hour -- and developed blisters on his scrotum."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/06/04/taiwan.heat.reut/index.html
Quandary For Semiconductor Industry: Enjoy Today Or Worry About Tomorrow?
Wednesday June 2,
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/040602/feature_1.html
Desktop Dynamite ABS AWESOME 6300
Admit it. Lurking below that unassuming exterior hides a geek consumed with a lust for power. You dream of frenetic foe fragging, video edit bit blasting, and no-prisoners number-crunching. Maybe the time has come to turn your dream into reality. To spur you on in your quest for desktop domination, we've corralled reviews of three mighty machines.
The ABS Awesome 6300, Polywell Poly 900NF3-FX53, and Velocity Micro Vision FX use AMD's latest overachiever, the astonishing 2.4-GHz Athlon 64 FX-53, currently the most powerful desktop processor in many applications..
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1607134,00.asp
then go to this page for the specs
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1559556,00.asp
thanks to skeptically
NANOROUTE DEMO FEATURING IBM/AMD
Route 7M nets per hour with NanoRoute superthreading technology, featured in the digital IC design area of the Cadence exhibit. Witness how the NanoRoute solution can route a flat 90-nm, 16M-gate systolic array medical imaging processor in minutes vs. hours using an IBM Cluster e1350. The router utilizes e325 dual 2-GHz Opteron-based compute nodes powered by AMD's next-generation 32/64-bit Direct Connected platform. The industry's fastest router just got faster!
http://dac.cadence.com/dac2004/cdnh.html
Also
Daresbury Beowulf Clusters
**************** Coming Soon: Scaliwag - June 2004 **************
The 64 Processor AMD Opteron 246 Cluster, Scaliwag
Scaliwag is currently being procured from OCF plc. It is an IBM e325 server (32 * dual 2.0GHz AMD Opteron's) managed by Scali MPI.
This is a test and development cluster, and if all goes according to plan, it should be connected using 3 different interconnects:
Mellanox Infiniband
Dolphin 2D Wulfkit (on-loan from OCF)
Gigabit Ethernet
We are expecting to be able to allow external access to this machine towards the end of June 2004.
http://www.cse.clrc.ac.uk/disco/beowulfs.shtml
Thanks to saxplayer
Intel sees higher Q2 revenue on flash memory demand
Quarter is better than expected, company executive says
By Tom Krazit, IDG News Service June 03, 2004
Intel Corp. on Thursday raised its revenue guidance for the second quarter to the high end of its previous range, citing stronger than expected demand for flash memory......
"The results are a little better than typical for a second quarter," said Intel Chief Financial Officer Andy Bryant on a conference call following Intel's announcement Thursday.
The second quarter is usually the slowest quarter of the year for chip and PC companies, and PC processor demand has been about where Intel predicted it would fall, Bryant said. However, demand is up about 19 percent from the second quarter of 2003, he said.
Improved flash memory demand has led to higher revenue than expected within the Intel Communications Group, Bryant said. Intel apparently has recovered from a series of pricing missteps last year that hurt its flash memory revenue.
The company has repaired relationships with its flash memory customers who balked at price increases Intel implemented at the beginning of last year, Bryant said.
"I think we've made real progress on flash in the last six months," Bryant said. However, the increase in flash memory revenue can also be attributed to stronger worldwide demand, he said.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/06/03/HNintelrevenue_1.html
AMD's Meyer, Morris beat the Via drum
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16350
AMD's Pricing Puzzle
By Loyd Case
When you have two companies battling fiercely for market dominance, you'd think price would be a major factor in the equation. In fact, for the longest time, price was a serious consideration. Intel would set prices for their CPU line and AMD would fall into line at just a few dollars less.
That ended, however, when AMD shipped its Athlon 64 chipset. Pricing of the FX series was higher than any Pentium 4 processor, except the belatedly launched Extreme Edition. However, the initial 754 pin CPU, the 3200+, came in at around $430 -- about the same as the top of the line mainstream Intel processor.
Intel's response: drop the price. ...........
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1606932,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532
ServerWorks to Pursue AMD Opteron Vogue
Server Logic Expert to Release AMD64 Chipset
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20040603145321.html
EDIT: Old story new packaging.
Grimes: Yes it is. It should be 2004.
I wunder whoddus there pruf reeding.
You think they might be able to afford a correction to that slide.
Jozef Halada: On SI you asked
On IIRC there was a story running around last week about $450 AMD64 computers in China.
Do you have a link? I must have missed that.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=20191735
In my readings I never saw a story like that about China but did see one about Indian. The price was to be under 30,000 rupees which, I am told, is about $600. I posted the link on here.
____________________________________________
AMD Unleashes Sub-30K PC NextGen-64
By Clyde Fernandes
Mumbai, May 26, 2004
AMD is aggressively pushing its Athlon 64-bit PCs by extensively advertising its NextGen-64 Business PC priced at sub-30K, mainly targeting the business segment. ........
http://www.channeltimes.com/channeltimes/jsp/index.jsp?section=News&subsection=PC-Servers&su....
____________________
EDIT: The link now gives the home page of Channel Times instead of the article. You will have to look it up in the archives.
Joe: No serious disagreements with your comments. However the following refinements could be added:
I think the specificity (production in May, output in July) goes a great distance in addressing the the biggest concern of AMD investors. Also, saying that 90nm will improve power, clock speed or both is also a confidence builder.
Rivet implied first week in April in his March presentation and was quickly followed by Richard who said production had begun in late April or May. Ruiz and an AMD guy said the same and they and Richard also specified improved power, no production problems.
I don't mean to nitpick, but the proof is in the pudding, or shipping products and their volume.
Keith posted a link from the Inquirer yesterday which questioned AMD's intentions with respect to mobiles, describing them as an afterthought. I think that was a gross distortion of the reality. The argument Keith repeatedly rehearses about AMD's need to get a move on with its mobiles has to be evaluated in the full context of AMD's road map. Rome wasn't built in a day - as another poster put it yesterday.
BTW, my take is that given the capacity limitations with big die on 130nm, AMD is just seeding the market, opening new doors, new segments, creating pricing expectations and premium brand of Athlon64 / Opteron, preparing for volume availability when 90nm parts ship.
To have something in the range of 12 OEM's partners for mobiles and perhaps 18 models out there at this stage is fine. I expect AMD to move swiftly once a supply of 90nm parts can be guaranteed.
The problem with Mirrorbit (or maybe I should say "issue") is that it has been over-hyped way, way before it was really ready for sale, and before it started gaining design wins. Because of that, the actual results / volume of Mirrorbit has always been way below the unrealistic expectations (which AMD created). Maybe the hype was a tool to sell it to customers, I don't know.
My impression is that it was ready but the customers were not. A lot of what we heard was marketing.
As far as Intel taking market share, since both are claiming gains, it is possible that there was no net change, but the market grew faster than expectations. We will get some numbers from quarterly results and form market research data next month.
You may recall that two analysts this week seem to have been quoting from the same Intel source that Intel had gained market share from AMD taking business from large clients such as Nokia. I have not read or listened to the Intel presentation but others have said that Bryant did not confirm any of this, not even that Intel's alleged flash gains were from AMD's share. It is possible that the analysts misinterpreted the Intel spin - or allowed themselves to be lead by the nose.
I think the presentation very much strengthened the bull case longer term (6 to 12 months) and mildly strengthened the short term case.
With respect to the short term, it indicated that AMD is in a market share gaining mode even in a seasonally weak Q2 for the industry, as a whole. And since ASP's are also rising, that can only mean increased EPS over Q1 and perhaps even absolute record revenues.
Some early bin splits.
If you can make it here you can make it anywhere, New York, New York.....
AMD Press Conference with fotos at the NY, NY Taipei
http://www.ninjalane.com/display.aspx?docname=computex2k4-1&page=2
I just listened to the recording of the Rivet presentation and viewed all the acommpanying slides from the pdf at the AMD site:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/FINAL_Rivet_Citigroup_Semi_Conf_June...
1. All the fudsters who have questioned the reliabilty of AMD's various announcements that 90 nm would ship for revenue in Q3, are now firmly shut up.
2. Those who have questioned the clarity and strength of AMD's intentions for mobiles as well as its actual progress in the form of cooperating OEMs and models-in-the-market (with more to follow with 90 nm) are also firmly shut up.
3. Those who have suggested that the introduction of MirrorBit is a mirage, and that Intel is taking back market share, are also shut up.
4. Those who have tried to dismiss the bull case as a dream are probably not shut up yet, but they will be when AMD posts 2Q EPS of between 15 and 20 cents.
IT Investor's Journal: Signs indicate strong Q3 for Intel, AMD
http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/management/04/06/03/194253.shtml
CRN Selects AMD Athlon FX-53 Processor to Power `Ultimate PC'
Thursday June 3, 8:01 am ET
AMD Athlon Processor Chosen to Power Cutting-Edge System for Fifth Time
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 3, 2004--AMD (NYSE:AMD - News) today announced that CRN (Computer Reseller News) chose the AMD Athlon(tm) 64 FX-53 processor to power its "Ultimate PC." CRN Test Center engineers evaluate various PC components selected for excellence in innovation, functionality and performance to showcase the best in cutting-edge technology. In front of an audience at the XChange TechBuilder conference in Las Vegas, CRN lab director John Yacono constructed what is deemed by CRN as the "Ultimate PC" based on the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processor.........
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040603/35200_1.html
DARBES: I am not looking for much:
1. Confirmation of 90 nm on time production. I suppose he will simply repeat what everyone else has said, "shipping for revenue in 3Q". But Richard yesterday introduced the phrase "mass production" in 3Q and 50% of revenues by year end and this might have been loose phraseology and might require some clarification of the word "mass" and "production". Did he mean "shipping of mass supplies" or just mass production, with shipping to be later than 3Q?
2. Confirmation that AMD continues to grow market share in NOR and make some inroads into traditional NAND markets with MirrorBit. Report on uptake of MirrorBit and effect on margins.
3. Refutation of Intel's claim that it is gaining NOR market share from AMD(except insignificantly in low density end).
4. Progress on cpu ASPs towards $100.
5. Anything on mobiles.
6. Effect on losses/profits of new GEODE chips.
AMD a top Deutsche Bank recommendation
Deutsche Bank comments on semiconductor weakness Raise c04 semi industry rev. forecasts to 22-24% growth from prior 15-17%. See 6-8% growth in c05. Believe recent correction makes the sector less unattractive. See 10-15% upside to SOX (closed 6/2 at 475.08) to 530-540, and 25% upside to European large-cap semis. Expect 2Q and 2H fundamentals to lift sector, though it will be volatile. Top picks are AGR.A and AMD (buy-rated) in the U.S. and ASML in Europe.
EDIT: Damning with faint praise and a double negative "believe recent correction makes the sector less unnattractive"
Thanks to Gil Davis on SI Board
Taiwan chip giant TSMC upbeat on global chip industry this year and next
TAIPEI (AP) - The chairman of the world's largest contract chipmaker said Thursday the global chip industry is expected to grow 30 per cent this year and that 2005 also looks strong.
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cp_tech_home&articleID=1629036
Gigabyte embraces new Intel and AMD chips
Motherboard maker showcases products featuring latest chipsets
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1155579
Rivet (AMD) @ Smith Barney Annual Semiconductor Conference
8:40 a.m. PT (11:40 a.m. ET) on Thursday, June 3, 2004
http://www.veracast.com/webcasts/sbcitigroup/semiconductor-2004/94202193.cfm
hoy!
ECS shows off Intel Sonoma and AMD Duron notebooks
Computex 2004 Yes, Durons
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16326
Iwill breaches its own eight way Opteron NDA
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16323
Intel: Why the Street Sees a Good Bet
Thanks to the rebound in tech spending and new products, the chipmaker stands to cash in on the investments it made during the downturn
EDIT: And it is better than AMD etc etc etc. About today's after hours report.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2004/tc2004063_3868_tc055.htm
Alienware ALX Liquid-cooled A64 FX53
http://www.alienware.com/ALX_pages/aurora_alx.aspx
FAR CRY free with AMD Bundles
EDIT: This was metnioned a day or two ago, but this url gives a link to the AMD ad
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/amdpromo.hmx?updepts=BUNAMDCPU&DNAME=Motherboard+Bundles+By+AMD+CPU
Keith: Ah! Well spotted!
"Mass production" of AMD 90 nm in Q3
http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=637
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article3.asp?datePublish=2004/06/02&pages=A5&seq=26
Charles Chou, Taipei; Steve Shen, DigiTimes.com [Wednesday 2 June 2004]
.....Meanwhile, Richard also said that AMD will start mass-producing its 64-bit processors with a 90nm process in the third quarter, with 64-bit processors shipments accounting for about 50% of the company’s total processor sales by year-end.
AMD will deliver the 90nm 64-bit processors with proper power consumption and heat dissipation solutions, Richard stated.
AMD wants to woo China with 64 bits
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16306
AMD's Meyer says Athlon 64 FX chips not expensive
Computex 2004 Customers want dual multicore desktops
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16297
EDIT: Also confirms that Windows for 64 expected in 2h 2004
If the Inquirer is to be believed
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=3231850
the mobiles with AMD chips I listed on my earlier post were not on show in Taipei.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=3228171
If I was wrong, put it down to my not reading the Japanese text properly. However, they are AMD mobiles and the manufacturers names can be seen on the cards next to them.
I count 12 models (two photos were of the Ferrari). And I count about 7 manufacturers.
AMD and Intel - changes in institutional ownership
AMD +12.35% from previous quarter.
http://www.finance.lycos.com/qc/research/marketguide.aspx?symbols=NYSE:AMD
INTC -1.87% from previous quarter.
http://www.finance.lycos.com/qc/research/marketguide.aspx?symbols=NASDAQ:INTC
thanks to dia4vr
'....Sun is not officially announcing the product just yet or putting it up for sale, but Schwartz did show off the box on stage during his speech. The sleek silver tower system - code-named Metropolis - runs on two Opteron 248 processors and was demoed with Sun's Java Desktop System software. Sun also plans to run Solaris x86 on the kit.
Sources at Sun Network told The Register the box should be generally available next month. Sun initially placed a limited number of orders for the kit but has already received higher than expected demand, according to the sources. One unnamed customer has pledged to buy more than 5,000 boxes - a figure higher than Sun's original order. When the system starts shipping in July, Sun will offer it with the Opteron 250 processor as well...'
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/02/sun_shows_metropolis/
The lowest latency is for the AMD Opteron processor. The AMD Opteron Processor has an integrated memory control which
contributes to it excellent performance. The AMD Opteron Processor platform tested was a dual CPU system, and slightly
higher latency was observed from the CPU that required an additional “hop” to reach the PCI-X bus bridge. All the
platforms tested were either two or four way SMP nodes. Large SMP systems may display greater latencies and greater
“localilty” effects.
The maximum PIO write bandwidth achievable was also tested and the results are shown in Table2.
http://doc.quadrics.com/quadrics/QuadricsHome.nsf/NewsByDate/2860185E4882A76780256EA5003C90D2/$file/....
Introduction
The performance of the Quadrics QsNetII has been measured in a variety of communications benchmarks, applications
benchmarks and parallel applications. This paper describes the basic performance characteristics of the hardware; how
performance varies depending on the host node type; scaling of parallel communications with network size; and applications
data for NWChem, Mping, EIP...........
"Within a year from now you will see Sun with the most complete and the most unbelievably cool Opteron product line of anybody out there in the marketplace," McNealy said. "We'll be IBM, Dell, and HP -- what they were to Xeon - we'll be to Opteron, all wrapped up in one company. We'll be far and away and clearly the No. 1 Opteron player out there."
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/breakingnews.asp?ArticleID=50559
Mobiles with AMD chips on show at Taipei