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Shortage of Intel Laptop Chipsets
EvilTwinSkippy writes "Taiwanese notebook vendors are reporting a short supply of Intel CPU chipsets for laptops. This includes the popular Centrino line.
In case you didn't know most "name brand" laptops like Dell, HP, and even Apple are actually manufactured by OEM's in Taiwan, Mainland China, and Korea."
Considering Apple computers don't rely on Centrino or Intel chipsets, I'm not sure why they were even thrown into the blurb.
A 20% shortage translates into higher prices or loss in profit for everyone involved (except in this case Apple because their chipsets don't go through Intel).
GPL Deconstructed
In case you didn't know most "name brand" laptops like Dell, HP, and even Apple are actually manufactured by OEM's in Taiwan, Mainland China, and Korea. No Shit. Wait I thought they were made by rosie the riveter here in the good ole USA.
This shows that AMD is doing way better than Intel. Doesn't AMD make mobile processor chips? If not, they should! AMD's chips have always run faster at the same rated speeds (don't ask me how that works). That's why a game's requirements may say "1 Ghz Pentium 4 or 800 Mhz AMD Athlon" , etc.
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
Apple laptops like my iBook are designed in the USA by best-of-field engineers, which makes all the difference in the world. They don't go to Taiwan and see what some company there has put together as and order a million units... which is pretty much what everyone but IBM and Fujitsu do.
Don't lament that the machine and assembly line labor is done in nations with developing economies - it means our high tech equipment is that much cheaper for us... so we buy more and attain that much more of a productivity advantage.
It's ok, we all wanted Clawhammer Athlons with 1 megabyte caches anyway.
"In case you didn't know most "name brand" laptops like Dell, HP, and even Apple are actually manufactured by OEM's in Taiwan, Mainland China, and Korea."
Well, just you wait until they savy up and "cut out the middleman". Won't that be an interesting day.
There was a serious, big-time oversupply of chip sets last quarter. This shortage could likely be the chip set suppliers being cautious -- the last time something like this happened we were swimming in finished notebooks for more than a quarter and it had a fairly negative impact on Intel and AMD's operations for about six months.
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As far as I can tell, Sharp is currently offering notebooks using the Transmeta. (They are IMHO quite expensive but then I tend to be a bottom feeder.) As well there is at least one tablet which is where something like the Transmeta should shine. Maybe if the law of supply and demand pushes the cost of other notebooks up, then Transmeta powered notebooks might become competitive. Or am I missing something?
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It's technically Original Design Manufacturer.
Intel is sitting on a record +3 Billion in inventory. If they have a shortage anywhere it means their managment have lost their minds.
There have been quite a few recalls of laptops because of overheating (such as Toshiba) - this could also have an effect in the shortage instead of just "demand".
Fortunatly, I bought an AMD based notebook after 3 laptop meltdowns, and it has had less problems than the Intel ones (even though it is a Compaq, and they have always given me overheating problems before). So I am not going back to Intel based machines ever again.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/24/2 242216
They do some of the design work, but it *is* the equipment that they are producing... And that's probably their main source of income.
This explains so much. I ordered a Laptop from alienware last month and they say they are still missing parts and won't start building it for another two weeks. Punks!!
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
Got it?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Intel (for example) has its headquarters in Portland, Oregon where I live. I've been walking around Portland today, and I seem to not have noticed any bullet trains. Also, there are still these coin operated pay phones. The traffic lights don't even tell you how much longer you have to cross the street. 7-11s don't have doors that slide automatically. Not even half of people have broadband! And if I was to take a bus ride for 200 miles, I wouldn't get my own easy chair and television set, for ten dollars. Also, Portland doesn't have the tallest skyscraper in the world.
Taiwan is perhaps not the most developed economy in the world, but it is hardly a "developing" economy. In some things, they are behind us, in some things they are about the same, and in some things, they are way ahead. Their croissants are certainly good and cheap.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Besides Intel's customary price gouging, that is. The amazing thing is that people bought enough of the chips to cause a shortage in the first place.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Wow ...
Macs have never been made in Cupertino. They used make them in Fremont for a while, and in Sacramento but those days are well over ... :-(
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Just to be clear, last time I checked (six months ago) IBM still made their own notebooks. I think they are still smarting from the deathstar line which was made by either fushitsu or hitachi.
PC boards are manufactured on automated assembly lines by machines. Very little of the work outside loading the machines and tending the reflow ovens is actually done by humans.
Quality, in this case, comes from testing. You test devices as much as you need to get your scores up, then ship the unit. This offends the heck out of a lot of old school engineers, but it's still a fact of modern life. Testing individual chips adds pennies to each device; testing the pc boards much more, then repairing them and retesting adds more still. At a certain point it becomes cheaper just to expect x% of your product to be returned under warranty, bin it, and ship a new (also untested) replacement. This is the tact increasingly taken by manufacturers including biggies like Dell and (especially since the takeover by emachines) Gateway. Cutting back on quality means cutting back on labor costs in testing, not so much cutting back on materials costs.
Buying a high end tv or stereo is pretty much the same these days: very little differentiation comes from what's on the inside. If you're willing to do your own Q&A before the warranty expires, brand matters almost nothing.
This, BTW, is the primary reason so many folks like "vintage" things. These things were made before quality became a mathematical afterthought, and devices that have survived intact all these years represent the cream of their respective crops.
Sorry, I live in PDX too and Intel isn't headquartered here. It DOES have more employees than anywhere else west of here in a suburb (Hillsboro). No real presence in PDX itself.
What we DO have is more breweries than any city/town in the world - over thirty inside the city limits.
Linus lives here now, too.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
Hey, Mom! Is it beer, yet?
EOM
Seems AMD's releasing a 'Thin and light' Sempron 3000+. Inq: http://theinq.com/?article=19824 How well it compares to the Centrino on heat emission and wattage, I couldn't say though.
I have one. HP zv5000z. I get 3-4 hours of battery life with the 12 cell battery. I just swapped in a Mobile-class Athlon 64 3200+ CPU (replacing the original DTR-class chip) to great effect (eMachines/Gateway already uses Mobile-class Athlon 64s). Right now I'm running 1.1GHz @ 0.8V, which means CPU power consumption is in... oh, probably the high single digits, wattage-wise. It'll do full speed at 1.2V too (35W max power consumption). But even without playing undervolting games like this you'll still get great battery life.
Expect the big AMD notebook onslaught to begin this Spring when their 25W 90nm Athlon 64 notebook chips are launched. Until then, I wouldn't mind a Ferarri (or this one)...
OTOH, newbies who buy Prescott-core P4's (look for the E designation, ie P4E 3GHz) better be wearing their asbestos underwear. They don't call them the P4 "Blast Furnace Edition" for nothing.
The first two letters in the serial number indicate where the product was made.
_ 0_1_0_C
XA or XB - Run A/Run B, California (I forgot where). Desktops, from what I've seen.
CK - Cork, Ireland. Powerbooks, up to the G3's
QT - Quanta, in Asia. Powerbook G3/G4, iBooks
SG - Singapore. iMacs (initially made in Mexico, iirc)
Of course, YMMV. My G3 desktop with an XA serial number (California) has a Made in Ireland sticker on the logic board. My guess is that the boards were made in Ireland, and the boxes stuffed in California.
More are here... http://www.clubarne.com/nblog/comments.php?id=125
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
But... But
My Dell laptop has that "Made in USA" label !
How can it be made in Taiwan or Korea
if it has the label ?
I got it just 2 months ago, from Dell !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Have you seen the prices on Itanium chips and chipsets? With the current prices, 3 billion dollars is only a dozen or so Itanium setups.;-)
SSG is also Singapore.
FTN/FC = Fountain, Colorado.
F = Fremont, CA (very old!)
Your G3 Desktop board must have been very old! They closed the PCB factory in Cork shortly after the G3 started up. Dunno how your logic board ended up in the US unless it was a rework that ended up back in the supply pool ...
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
You're talking about issues that are completely subjective as well as completely obvious to the purchaser. Of course there are differences in the picture between models and brands - but this doesn't mean the most expensive brands will always have the most appeal to the purchaser.
When picking a tv set it pretty much comes down to "I like the looks of that one." If it's a tube set, crank up the volume and see how the picture behaves. If you can see it shudder in rhythm with the sound, it's got a crap power supply and it's time to pick another model. If a CRT set's got a stable picture at high volume, put a blanket on top of it and partially restrict the airflow, and leave it on 24/7 for a few days. If it smokes, take it back and try again. If it survives the first month under stress, it'll probably last as long as the picture tube.
They assemble some of the power macs g5 near me in Cork Ireland but everything including my imac comes from asia.
as a result because of apples slow customer supply chain i wait 5 weeks for any built to order machine.
my imac g5 was made in Shanghai
G5 Desktops and XServes, actually. I know this because I work there (tho' I mostly work from home these days).
Weather's terrible today, isn't it? :-)
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
It's an early one. Built in Nov 97, and the board is a Rev 1 (the one with the IDE bug preventing slave devices from working).
:-)
It's also a 233 Mhz model, the low-end at the time. It's not bad with a cheap G4 chip though, serving as a file server/iTunes box, and for anything else I want to offload from the powerbook. I also have a 266 with Zip (the higher end Rev 1) here, I should look at the board the next time it's open. I don't have much of a use for it at the moment, other than sitting below the other G3 to make the rack more impressive
The Fountain building was sold, iirc. Not sure if that company actually did any production for Apple after they took over.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!