"Tick" - the clock is ticking

Source: 2007 Intel Spring Analyst Meeting


Source: 2007 Fall IDF

This morning, Intel sent out this press release announcing the opening of its first, high-volume 45nm leading edge microprocessor manufacturing facility in Chandler, AZ.

Fab 32 is the 2nd factory in Intel's fab network to produce 45nm processors, following the D1D Hillsboro, OR facility which manufactured the first 45nm processors in January, 2007.

Fab 28, in Kiryat Gat, Israel and Fab 11x in Rio Rancho, NM will produce 45nm microprocessors in 2008, rounding Intel's 45nm factory network.

Intel's 45nm High-k manufacturing process will be used to produce Penryn and Nehalem based processor designs.

It is rumored that on November 12, Intel will observe one minute of silence in remembrance of AMD, as "rev 10h" is officially inducted into Justin Rattner's Dustbin of Obsolete Technology.

Oh, and one more thing. Today 10/25 was also the one year anniversary of the acquisition of ATI by AMD. In celebration of the event, the Inquirer's Theo Vallich wrote this piece in memory of the ill-fated union. Was it worth it? Theo writes:

"Time will tell if Hector and Dirk screwed things up or not. All we know is that AMD's market cap today is at the levels of ATI Technologies alone (at ATI's finest hour), meaning around 15 billion dollars of shareholder value got wiped over the course of a single year.

Joint market cap was around 20.87 billion USD - Daamit is now valued at 6.99 billion USD. µ"

Hmm...maybe not :)

10/26 Update: besides reporting lackluster support for AMD's Black Edition from motherboard makers in this article, DIGITIMES reported that AMD will launch its first Phenom quad-core processors on November 20. Techspot reckons that if the rumor is correct, Phenoms at 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz will 512K L2 per core and 2M shared L3 will be peddled. This will not be enough to compete against Intel's Penryn based monsters.

NEWS FLASH! Sharikou narrows his Intel bankruptcy projection timeframe

I previously wrote here that Sharikou had pushed out his Intel bankruptcy timeframe prediction out to 2009. I had chided Sharikou for not giving a narrower range in 2009 as in his original bankruptcy prediction he had given both the calendar year and quarter.

Today, in this new Circus Maximus post, Sharikou narrows his Intel bankruptcy projection to 1Q09.

In an ironic development, on Tuesday, October 16, Intel reported blowout Q3 2007 earnings. From the press release:

INTEL POSTS RECORD THIRD-QUARTER REVENUE
• Revenue $10.1 Billion, up 15 Percent Year-over-Year
• Operating Income $2.2 Billion, up 64 Percent Year-over-Year
• Record Microprocessor, Chipset and Flash Unit Shipments
• Net Income $1.9 Billion
• EPS 31 Cents

Intel also guided Q4 earnings in a positive trajectory
• Revenue: Between $10.5 billion and $11.1 billion.
• Gross margin: 57 percent plus or minus a couple of points.

Intel shipped more than 2 million quad core processors during the 3rd quarter. I wonder how many AMD managed to ship in the same timeframe. Anyone care to hazard a guess?

AMD reports Q3 2007 earnings on Thursday, October 18, after the bell.

Intel Nehalem and AMD Toliman Die Pics

I recently became aware of a recent post by Hans de Vries of his analysis of Intel's Nehalem Die. For pictures of other work by Hans you can check out http://www.chip-architect.com/


Quad Core Nehalem



Another picture of Nehalem's die was posted in this DailyTech blog entry by Kristopher Kubicki




Not to be outdone, I've recently become aware of recent links to pictures of alleged AMD Toliman aka AMD PhenomTM triple-core dies floating out and about.

You've probably already seen this picture in this Roborat's blog post


This one was sent to me by a recent ex-ATI Markham employee who's recently relocated to points south.



And this one, perhaps my favorite one to date, hails from this post (scroll to see post by RuSo) on http://www.overclock.net/



I also received a mysterious email with the following image claiming to be that of the home of a certain "managing editor" who resides in Linton, Indiana. I don't know what this has anything to do with Nehalem or Toliman die pictures but I figured I'd put up the image to round out this set.



If someone has additional links to other die shots of interest, I'd like to know about them.

RUMOR - No more posh digs for AMD execs?

According to this AMD fan site post, AMD's Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz will be downsizing from an office to a cubicle. This change will presumably take place when AMD moves out of its existing Austin location to the new "Lone Star" campus which is under construction under heavy protest from environmentalists as its on the environmentally fragile Barton Springs area of the Edwards Acquifer.

According to this article by the Save Our Springs Alliance,

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) recently bucked public opinion and public policy guidance by moving their operations out of the Desired Development Zone and into the and into the Barton Springs watershed, where they are building an 860,000 square foot complex. For comparison, the Frost Bank tower downtown is about 500,000 square feet.

We encourage companies to locate in Austin responsibly. AMD instead was irresponsible with their location, and consequently polluted the waterways of the Barton Springs watershed with dirty runoff after a relatively minor rain event.

Some links on this matter from the Austin Chronicle

AMD Not So Clean?
Point Austin: Saying 'No' to AMD

Here's AMD's spin site on the matter.

AMD employees should be ashamed. Maybe the "senior leadership team" should have retained their offices at the existing AMD location.

One more thing. Didn't Hector relocate to Sunnyvale?

NEWS FLASH! Sharikou delays his Intel bankruptcy prediction until 2009

After many ramblings in the Circus Maximus blog by Sharikou whereby he asserted that Intel would go bankrupt in 2Q08, today we are greeted with the following statement in this latest Circus Maximus post, where he writes

But by 2009, Intel will have BKed, and won't be able to pay the
anti-trust penalties.

Come again? 2009? Whatever came over Sharikou to grant Intel such an extensive reprieve from bankruptcy at this time?

How could we go from such memorable statements like below (thanks to Intel Fanboi)...:

Dell was excited, I heard, he is going to switch to near 100% AMD by 1Q08, just one quarter ahead of Intel's projected BK

I re-iterate my projection that Intel BK by 2Q08.

Intel BK by 2Q08, that what I said in 2006, and that is what will happen in 2Q08.

As I predicted long ago, AMD should exit 2006 with 40% market share (run rate). Intel's BK by 2Q08 is pretty much in the bag.

...to a CY2009 pushback? Hell! What about the friggin' calendar quarter, eh? Sharikou, are you losing your touch?

We could speculate what brought forth a change in Sharikou's doomquarter, umm, doomyear projections...

• Did a bowling ball or some other similarly amassed object land on his head?
• Did he finally get the right meds to stabilize his condition?
• Did he suddenly learn how to find and read SEC filings?
• ?

Sadly, we may never know the answer to the question.

Perhaps it's a Freudian slip

Maybe 2009 is the year a company "BK"s alright.

But not Intel.