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pata deserves to be laid to rest and the only issue keeping it alive seems to be the optical drives. i think it's the last 5v legacy interface since most other things have moved to usb. 5v interfaces are very difficult as you move to smaller silicon geometries.
the optical drive folk seem be be intent on figuring out how to take the last penny out of manufacturing on their now very mature dvd r/w drives rather than investing in new interfaces.
i think they're all waiting for some clarity on the hd optical drive conflict before doing their next round of drives which will likely be the ones to have sata.
unfortunately i don't think they're going to get any clarity anytime soon, if ever...
gb
i'm skeptical of the financial side of a merger but i never thought amd would dig themselves out of a debt hole either, so what do i know...
btw, i seem to remember the early german debt covenants required the approval of the lenders for any such merger. are those obligations retired?
otoh, i don't see how amd can continue to operate without the tight integration that intel has in the platforms if intel manages to achieve with vpro and viiv what they did with centrino.
there's also the issue of what to do with a fab that might not be any good for cpus anymore yet perfectly useful for something else...like chipsets.
of course it will upset nvidia and probably via but if it's what they think they need to succeed then they need to make some choices.
of course their stereo salesman will have his work cut out for him to explain the significant change in strategy. but he's good!
gb
he may soon be washing other's cars...
"You know a man of my ability
He should be smokin on a big cigar
But till I get myself straight I guess I'll just have to wait
In my rubber suit a-rubbin these cars"
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jim+croce/workin+at+the+car+wash+blues_20071487.html
gb
why should you care what intel does? are you an intel long?
are you long amd? shouldn't you be worried about what amd is doing rather than what intel is doing?
gb
i think this might prove to be a positive move. kim is from samsung and no doubt has a lot of consumer connections. maybe good to have someone like him trying to envigorate consumer platforms.
gb
if conroe and its chipsets are that healthy it's going to put a much earlier and deeper hurt on amd.
gb
when there's nothing left to say about products you can expect a lawsuit press release blizzard.
i'm expecting an increased amount blustering about the lawsuit from amd at their q2cc compared to the last few.
if they do i expect the street will take that as a sell sign...
gb
now i'm really puzzled!
first we get news that amd's 65nm process will focus increased availability of low performing chips rather than anything in performance improvements then we get news that k8l is a '08 rather than '07 product.
is amd just sandbagging? seems counterproductive when they depend so heavily on others for platform support.
any ideas???
gb
when a company rolls up their numbers and something material is in them it becomes a difficult to ensure that the information is protected from selective disclosure.
since they had two weeks to go before the q1 cc perhaps they thought they couldn't take the risk and needed to get everything out per reg fd.
gb
intel's process, design and manufacturing all keyed to one another and in synch is an amazing combo.
can't get there by buying pieces...
gb
iirc this was the first process that was fully jointly developed.
so apparently the chip designers and the process designers are out of synch.
gb
i can only assume that amd thought ahead far enough to ensure that their designs would work on the almighty ibm process.
gb
iirc, isn't 65nm the place where amd/ibm were fully engaged and expectant of maximum benefit? wasn't 90nm supposed to be a mere warmup for the big 65nm event?
i'm too lazy to go back and find a "glorious press release" but i think i'm right.
oh, yeah, and abundant fab capacity.
something is badly wrong somewhere...
gb
well we don't know if it's the "same" bug but apparently (allegedly) they have one. if it's with their own chipset and raid software it will get fixed pretty quickly.
i don't run raid on my desktop.
gb
wouldn't be the first time that ibm had a timing dependent bug in their hardware.
gb
well they could all start fawning over the delightful am2 socket!
and waxing poetic over inverse hyperthreading!
/sarcasm
gb
interesting rearrangement of bets...
$600M from sale of XScale (for mostly phones) to $600M invested in WiMax (mostly not phones)
gb
i personally don't think the amd "ny fab" will ever occur.
if it was really going to happen around 2010 then ground breaking would need to occur next year.
we'll see...
gb
goat entrails...
gb
Sean Maloney was the biggest proponent of pursuing the cell phone market while I was at Intel. It will be interesting to see if/how this is covered at the upcoming analyst meeting.
WiFi and WiMax do represent a large market. Perhaps that was considered to be enough.
BTW, Mot, aka Freescale, didn't seem to be the big competition. It was TI that was eating their lunch.
In fact the recent Mot Q phone is a Xscale design.
gb
clue bat = wood shampoo, aka 2x4 upside the head...
gb
laudnum
gb
cw music: same first letters as conroe, woodcrest, merom.
coincidence?
exploding amdfanbois heads...
gb
actually i saw it in "mars attacks." play some cw music for mas...
i think there's going to be a lot of exploding amdfanbois heads over the next few months.
gb
did it ever occur to you that most servers might be built to order?
gb
my take is that amd is doing the only thing they can which is increase volumes and lower cost.
they are clearly going to lose out on comparisons of performance and power on desktop and notebook platforms so price is the only thing left.
in order to maintain revenue and profitability volumes need to go up and costs need to go down. that means a die size reduction which means cache has to go.
the loss of performance due to cache reduction won't be noticed since they'll be losing on performance measures anyway.
gonna get ugly...
gb
the amd ddr2 transition is pretty interesting. it isn't obvious to me why their ddr2 controller doesn't yield any benefit.
but it's obvious to me why they had to do it. the 80% mss intel has is causing the memory makes to move wholesale to ddr2 and amd has no choice...even when it brings no apparent benefit.
gb
amd to rmi: if we give you money will you take this crap off our hands?
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060613/20060613005686.html?.v=1
gb
i personally don't think intc shares will do much until they have posted two quarters of good results. that means q1 at best.
gb
us retail although nicely visible when visiting your local best buy represents a small portion of overall pc sales.
but you knew that...
gb
it's all about the audience. i would expect them to be conservative when talking to financial analysts. i would also expect them to be exhorting the oems to make a conversion as quickly as possible to absorb all manufacturing output.
it's not about setting the bar low rather making sure that no one can accuse them of hyping the ramp.
if the manufacturing is going well and the scenario i offered is in play i would expect to hear about it in the q2 call.
gb
i know that's what they told the analysts. i also see them pushing the oems for an apparently higher ramp.
i guess we'll all know come new years.
gb
CJ
Just suppose for a second that Intel isn't "bleeding out" but reducing P4 inventories and repositioning that part of their line in prep for a larger than expect Conroe ramp.
Bryant said they were going to increase P4 inventory (as they always try to do) just in case something goes wrong with the Core2 builds.
If nothing is going wrong, rather everything right, with Conroe I would expect exactly what is going on right now: lots of volume and aggressive pricing to move what might be unneeded safety stock.
gb
agreed.
gb
dave
i'm guessing the conversation stimulated by gordon's question often had to answer a lot of questions about how to develop a critical mass of utility, what the cost of developing the critical mass and who will bear it and finally the probability of success.
the answers to those questions so far have yielded only an FPU which finally got permanently integrated on the Pentium family.
except for graphics chips nothing else has made the desktop.
it was, and is still, heavy lifting.
those sockets didn't come easy...at least from the field's perspective.
gb
maybe ngma is doing better than expected and andy/pso are clearing out the "just in case" inventory that was mentioned in the q1 call.
gb
IIRC, Tandem was MIPS based.
gb
Coprocessing is just crap. If any of you are old enough to remember what it took to get the software industry to support the x87 when it was a "socket" you'll remember it was very heavy lifting. It wasn't until it was in the 486dx that it was starting to take off and even then the 486sx was offered for those who wouldn't pay the extra at the CPU level.
It wasn't until Pentium that the FPU finally became accepted since it wasn't optional.
I hope AMD spends lots of their precious marketing resources on coprocessors. Maybe they'll add to their lawsuit that Intel is strongarming the SW community to not use them. Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket...
gb
the only problem with such loss leaders is that they have the propensity to generate loss for the other participants as well.
time will tell but i doubt if 10k units of this mess ever sell through any channel.
gb
I think Intel is finally on the right track: combining aggressive architecture development with classic Intel "build and fill" manufacturing. The platform level marketing on all fronts will complement this nicely.
Whether its shareholders will be rewarded with stock price increases remains to be seen but its competitors will certainly be in a world of hurt.
Back to Basics...some of you may recognize this...
gb