Intel Corp (INTC)

[Elmer Phud]

Spokeshave -

Intel's yields were notoriously reported to be poor both on the faster coppermine and the new willamette. They had the FAB "capacity" to meet demand. They did not have problems meeting demand because of a lack of capacity. They did not meet demand because of poor execution.

I am prohibited from commenting directly on Intel's yields but I will say that I am unaware of anything in the public domain to support your statement. I keep a close eye on the literature and publications and there is nothing I recall that you could base this claim on. Because of the passage of time, I will say that Intel's CuMine binsplits were poor by most standards at the highest frequencies, but this does not equate to poor yield. A device that does not operate at 1GHz could still operate fine at a lower speed. As for Willamette, because of the large die size you would expect a lower overall yield. The key metric here is defect density and there is no indication that I am aware of that would support your statement. As for capacity, I see this claim made over and over and it always seems to assume that Intel makes nothing but processors. You fail to realize that Intel is the worlds largest chipset maker as well as Flash provider. When you are doing your capacity analysis are you factoring in StrongArm and Xscale where Intel is taking over the PDA market? How about communications chips, microcontrollers, embedded processors and automotive? How about giving us an analysis of how you think Intel had the capacity to deliver CuMine and Willamette volumes while still meeting the other demands? I'd like to know how you arrive at that conclusion.

EP