Intel Corp (INTC)

[Elmer Phud]

Dew -

I would appreciate any elaboration about AMD’s SOI process that led you to your conclusion.

SOI has never been done in high volume manufacturing. You won't find anything specific to AMD, other than rumors, but there are many articles in the literature that speak of the difficulties of using SOI. High cost, low yields and possible reliability problems are mentioned. AMD's choice was yet another hail-Mary attempt to field a competitive processor. So far it hasn't yielded a manufacturable product, however it was the only option AMD had. Had they relied on a conventional .13u process they would not have been competitive going forward anyway. When the plane is going down, even an unproven parachute is better than none at all.

EP