@Paul - BE line // general thoughts
What should I say, I don't know, whether a new 45W line makes
so much sense, just because the OEMs could use existing 35W
mobile parts, which would fit the needs much better, if
power is the KEY. So why 45W? It seems to me, that AMD wants
to press some money out of the Brisbane design which yields
good at very low voltages. Money wise I could understand that
move, but nothing more. When I'm a knowledgable customer, I
would choose existing 5000+ parts and would undervolt and
underclock these. I'm sure, you will reach a better number
compared to these BE parts - higher clock at the same volt
or lower voltages at the same clock. So where is the BE left?
I think these lines will not command good volumes compared
to the normal 65W parts. Its more a toy place just to look
around and see what will happen.
BTW, its really frustrating to see, that quarters after
Brisbane was introduced, AMD couldn't ship better modells,
instead they have to axe prices by huge huge margins. Even
the 6000+, the highest modell, is cheap right now, but not
because AMD wants it to be cheap, no, it has to be priced in that
region just to make a sell possible. Again, I can't say it
often enough how bad desktops look like these days. I can't
remember times where prices looked so ugly for the WHOLE!!!
line. It seem even uglier than K6 times overall. I don't know
how notebooks could fight against Santa Rosa, but its too
quiet when you ask me, much too quiet. And without K10 in
servers, the only card AMD has left here is pricing against Intel.
Volume will be the key for Q2, some argue, that Q1 was a
"special" theme - for me its tough to argue against or to
protect that meaning. The only thing I know is that pricing
look terrible now and that the situation will not change in
Q3, no it will get even uglier. Without meaningful K10 desktop
volume in Q4, everyone could EASILY guess, how prices will
look like in Q4 without any new (Brisbane) modells. And at
this point, I don't see K10 will help AMD that much at the
beginning of 2008, because Intel went again a good way further
.
For me these times are the toughest in the whole AMD history,
just because I get more and more the feeling, that 65nm K10s
will not save AMD and debt will grow to levels, which aren't
sustainable. My estimate now is, that AMD will reach 7B+ in
debt in mid 2008, which brings a GIGANTIC Interest payment
burden. At 6-7% the interest payment per quarter could be as
high as 110-120Mio. alone. Do your own math what revenue AMD
has to reach just to reach a zero line - I don't speak about
profits. At these levels and when we go forward, I'm seeing
the needs for 2-2,2B per quarter in Revs. just to reach a ZERO,
not a single pence more, line. That would be 8-9B in Revs next
year. With these products its far out of reach. If all goes
bad, AMD will loose 2-3B in 2008.
As written on SI, the net equity (without goodwill) will go
under Zero in next year. I will not rule out Chapter 11.
