Re: Can you point me to a situation in the past, in which AMD has successfully used a third party manufacturer (Chartered in this case) to help it in its capacity battle with Intel?
That's a valid point. But I think it's at least as likely that AMD will have success at Chartered 7 as it is that Intel will do OK with their Merom core.
Here's how AMD has been building up to the FAB 7 deal. First, it should be noted that AMD currently has its chipsets, Geodes, etc. produced at FABs (but that's pretty different, since those parts aren't dependent on a leading edge process). Much more important, AMD currently develops its process in FAB space it leases from IBM. Then AMD transfers the new process to Dresden. Over the past few years, AMD has developed a series of practices and automated tools to expedite this FAB to FAB transfer. Both AMD and Chartered have licensed IBM's FAB technology which includes a which tools to use, etc. If AMD can transfer from East Fishkill to Dresden, I don't see why they can't transfer from East Fishkill to Chartered - but maybe they'll run into trouble, you never know until the ramp succeeds.
But I expect they'll do OK.
By the way, I expect Merom will turn out to be a decent core, too. But I don't expect it to do more for Intel than let it catch up to AMD, if that. We'll find out for sure in a couple of years - maybe Merom will be a great core.
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