[IP] more on On AMD, Apple, Intel, IBM and The Great Game of Chips
Begin forwarded message:
From: Newmedia@xxxxxxx
Date: June 6, 2005 12:30:50 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: amaah@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] On AMD, Apple, Intel, IBM and The Great Game of Chips
Koranteng:
1) AMD does *not* have its Dresden Fab 36 humming along and won't
until sometime next year. As a result it is capacity constrained and
cannot really do any damage to Intel at the moment. Transitioning to
300mm and then 65nm could be a challenge -- even with IBM's help,
which is where most of this technology comes from them. Most
importantly, as regards AMD's stock, they will probably have to
successfully spinoff Spansion to get any "respect."
2) While AMD does have a better mousetrap, they still don't have what
IBM can offer with its Power 5 and upcoming Power 6 families. The
Apple G5 is one-half a dual-core Power 4. AMD's next generation K-10
is being designed by an ex-IBM Power 4 architect. When it come to
high-performance memory and I/O capabilities, the current sweepstakes
has IBM in first, AMD second and Intel in a *distant* third.
3) There is a fundamental battle going on between standard and custom
parts. The economic and price/performance tradeoffs are massive.
Apple is presumably replacing the standard Freescale G4 parts with
standard Intel parts but this still leaves open the matter of the
custom G5 parts they get from IBM. Where will the future volumes
be? Which markets -- games, TVs, cellophones, cars, etc. -- will go
which way?
4) Right now AMD (like Intel) makes standard parts. Will AMD shift
towards custom parts -- like IBM? Do the customers really want to be
competing with Intel's most-favored-nation Dell? Who should get the
profits -- Intel or the systems vendor? What will happen in China -
now that IBM owns a big chunk of Lenovo?
Glad you like AMD -- so do I but there are still many fundamental
issues unresolved as we rapidly deploy the next-generation platform
and prepare for global expansion in digital services.
Best,
Mark Stahlman
New York City
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