Replies to post #69751 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[wbmw]

Re: Especially, when one compares what is coming out of AMD's sole processing plant at 90nm and 200mm. Doesn't any of this strike you as being in the slightest way odd?

Not at all, since this has been a frequent discussion on these boards. AMD can provide up to a fifth of the world's CPUs from one 200mm factory, while Intel can provide four fifths from their three 300mm factories. Of course, that's the over-simplified version. The reality is that average die sizes make a difference, as well as product mixes, test wafer percentage, etc. For example, with an ASP that's still in the range of $100, do you expect AMD is selling more large die X2 processors, or more small die Semprons? Also, keep in mind that the desktop market is the most relevant when you are trying to guess at volumes. AMD's share of the mobile and server markets, combined with the relative sizes of these markets, means they only contribute in a minor way to AMD's overall average output.

[VBG]

you:

Everything I've been reading seems to indicate that INTC still has a couple of quarters left before the shortage situation is taken care of. Still I find it hard to correlate shortages of any sort at INTC with all the capacity they have and the less than impressive growth INTC has been demonstrating. To me anyway, something is clearly amiss. Especially, when one compares what is coming out of AMD's sole processing plant at 90nm and 200mm. Doesn't any of this strike you as being in the slightest way odd?

me:

Keep in mind that the shortage is in chipsets, not processors. Check out the growth in Chipset attach rates on slide 12 here: ftp://download.intel.com/intel/finance/presentations/PDF_Files/lehmanconfdec2005maloney.pdf
The same slide notes that IG chipsets (which take more die area) are now 75% of Intel's notebook chipset mix.

-VBG