Intel Corp (INTC)

[ChipGeek]

And of course, there's still a third item that I haven't mentioned. I assumed an almost unheard of level of validation time, in that AMD would be able to validate and debug their parts all within a month of silicon.

Yes, absolutely.

In my mind, the only hope of a Q2 launch is if B-0 did in fact tape out a couple months ago, and if that full stepping is completely healthy; it will take until the end of Q2 to qualify such a part for full production. So I agree with your best-case scenario, that a healthy B-0 is AMD's only hope of meeting Q2, and that's only possible if that design is already done. If they need to do any more work to productize Barcelona, we're looking at Q3 or even Q4. Realistically speaking, I think a productized B-1 stepping is the best anybody can hope for, and that's in Q3.

It speaks volumes to me that AMD management is making their external commit-date as the perfect-case scenario. Smart companies set a reasonable external commit that takes into account possible contingencies, and then shoot for an internal target to try and pull the schedule in. Gee, I wonder companies do that? *coughintelcough*