Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Ixse]

Alan, re: Itanium profitability.

Some questions:

- Do you know what test wafers / new mask sets cost, and how much are necessary over the life time of a particular chip (like Madison, or Montecito? Mask sets for 300mm 90nm are quite expensive. They become real costs when resulting wafer volume is low. Maybe you have, but I don't see how you considered this and other one time costs.
- Why do you only try to estimate current development costs when forming an opinion about 'Itanium profitability'? Shouldn't all dev costs so far be included when discussing this? You can't just discard it like it never happened.
- I think that Itanium CAN'T share x86 server boards or much of the infrastructure at all until CSI which is currently scheduled for H2 '07. So why talk like this is already the case? Itanium e.g. uses twice the FSB size as current x86, uses a different memory controller, different board layouts, etc...
- Silicon process development is ALSO done for Itanium and therefore it doesn't make any sense to exclude it. There is even likely to be specific Itanium related process development, e.g. related to large 600mm^2 dies.
- Ofcourse Intel is still also paying developers to work on Itanium software, albeit maybe not as much as in earlier stages.
- Then there's marketing costs. If you talk 'Itanium profitability' those count too (and not only what is currently spend on marketing).

Just some thoughts.

Regards,

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