Combjelly, Re: And if AMD and IBM are working together, there is no particular reason why they couldn't use some of AMD's expertise. ANd yes, IBM could likely do it themselves, but it would also cost. Both in time and in people.
We already know that IBM and AMD are exchanging expertise of one form or another, but the original speculation was about IBM building a fab and handing it over to AMD. For the costs of building a fab, IBM could hire enough engineers for 16,000 man-years worth of work. Clearly, anything that AMD could possibly offer wouldn't come close to that kind of compensation, especially considering that AMD would be the one who is more disadvantaged, given their desperate financial situation. The only conclusion I can reach is that if IBM should decide to build a new fab, they wouldn't hand it off to AMD without some strings attached (i.e. a fixed fee per wafer).
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