Intel to Spend $2B To Stay In The Game

hexed_2050 writes "AMD has declared dominance in the gaming and server microprocessor market in 2004, and Intel needs to respond.. fast! This is why Intel has planned to spend 2 billion dollars to upgrade their eight year old, Fab 12 plant in Arizona. "Part of what I do is put the emphasis on how fast we respond," explains Robert Baker, Intel's top manufacturing executive."

Comments

Nice

[Aggrazel]

Say what you want about Intel, but I'm happy to see they are investing $2 billion in an American plant, instead of sending those jobs away. Course, it could be that with the dollar falling they couldn't afford as much in other places... another reason why I think the value of the dollar going down isn't necesarily a bad thing.

Re:Nice

[Martin Blank]

They didn't "let" prices go up this year. The prices went up because of speculation over political instability in Venezuela, Russia, Iraq, and Nigeria affecting output. It got to the point where the various OPEC nations were pumping veritable crap out of the ground (stuff that has less of the useful hydrocarbons) in order to boost the overall numbers to try to push things down. OPEC knows it has a PR problem, since it's seen as a bunch of money-grubbing sheiks that only want to bilk the world for cash. Quotas were set as high as the nations could reasonably pump, and some nations even went higher, risking damage to equipment, in an attempt to push things down.

Of note to the conspiracy theorists is that prices didn't start dropping until well after the election was over, although many were predicting an October surprise with OPEC providing some massive drop in oil prices. In spite of their views, the prices continued reaching record levels, and it wasn't until news came that oil consumption in China was being slowed by additional tariffs Beijing placed on imported oil in an effort to slow consumption growth, followed by word that US oil use was down and that on-hand stocks were growing, that prices began to come down.

OPEC is happy when oil is around the $35 per barrel range. It's not so expensive that they get slammed in the press, and not so cheap that they make no money.

Re:Nice

[Dot.Com.CEO]

The only thing keeping your economy afloat, despite of HUGE deficits and insane economic policies (cutting on taxes while increasing on military spending etc.) is the fact that all first and second world countries base their own economies on the dollar, partly because there was no alternative before the euro came into play, and partly because it was a Marshall-era remnant.

The moment the dollar loses that unique place, as a pillar of financial stability, economies around the world swap dollars for euros at an ever dropping rate. The dollar is 1.36 euros now, while two and a half years ago it was 0,85 or less, I cannot remember. Generally speaking, this trend has not been worse only because the Chinese (of all countries) are supporting the dollar buying enormous amounts of it on the markets.

The way your economy is going, and the way the euro guarantees its own stability through various WORKING mechanisms of the ECB, it is undeniable that in the next twenty years or so the Euro will be where the dollar is today. And since your whole economy is supported by outside economies, it is very probable it will collapse. Why? Well, its exchange rate will hit the floor and will bring huge price hikes to anything that is not made 100% in the US. Which is, everything.

So, when you vote for "less taxes", you put one more stone in the end of the great American empire. I, as a European, shake my head and wonder whether you Americans have any idea what is happening in your country...

AMD must be loving this.

[Grey Ninja]

I remember back when AMD announced a 64 bit desktop CPU. The common consensus was that they were completely daft, and other than the rabid early adopters who buy anything... it wouldn't do all that well, given that PCs are still tied to 32 bit software.

Now fast forward a year or two, and AMD is on top, and Intel is trying to play catch up. I never would have dreamed this would happen. I really have to tip my hat to AMD.

Re:AMD must be loving this.

[Glock27]

I remember back when AMD announced a 64 bit desktop CPU. The common consensus was that they were completely daft, and other than the rabid early adopters who buy anything... it wouldn't do all that well, given that PCs are still tied to 32 bit software.

The only thing that saved AMD in this regard is that AMD64 chips run 32-bit code faster (for most software) than any of the Pentiums. Microsoft seems to have helped out it's old partner Intel by delaying Win64 until Intel managed to clone AMD64. Heh, that is quite a switch - Intel cloning AMD. ;-)

At least Linux for AMD64 has been available for some time...and it's great to see Sun pushing Solaris for AMD64 also.

Now fast forward a year or two, and AMD is on top, and Intel is trying to play catch up. I never would have dreamed this would happen. I really have to tip my hat to AMD.

Yes, all this and lower power consumption (than P4) to boot. There should be some sweet notebooks and servers coming out over the next few months also, as the true low-power Athlon64s and Opterons roll out.

Is that really the problem?

[confusion]

It seems to me that Intel's problems are not just of the fabrication sort. They've fallen behind with innovation, which is where AMD is starting to kick their butt. Sure, Intel needs a plant to back up new designs, but if they can't get their heads back in the game, that plant isn't going to do much.

Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/

Intel is not going to disappear

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard the same thing after ATI came out with R300. nVidia is going the way of 3DFX. Now AMD seems ahead and those that think Intel is the evil empire are praying for it to disappear. It ain't going to happen. I'd venture to say the long-term prospects are better for Intel than AMD. For consumers, the pitched ATI/nVidia battle has been good. Same thing for AMD/Intel. Tough competition brings choice and lower prices. I hope Intel moves fast. I don't want AMD ruling the market anymore than I want Intel.

Story time

[buddha42]

AMD has declared dominance in the gaming and server microprocessor market in 2004?

What is this "make shit up for the headline" hour? Lets see what a professional news organization has to say: http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type =technologyNews&storyID=6960222

AMD trimmed Intel's share in PC-based servers in the third quarter, taking 8 percent of unit sales, up from 6.9 percent, according to IDC.
...
AMD also saw slight gains in unit share for desktop and notebook PCs. It now has 18.4 percent of the desktop PC market
...
Intel nevertheless held onto its overall dominance of the PC microprocessor market, retaining 81.2 percent of the overall share of units, off slightly from 81.7 percent.

Re:"...how fast we respond"

[dsginter]

is Intel resigned to only "respond" to AMD from now on, never to lead again?

Intel's problem isn't how fast they respond but rather something else entirely: a patent.

That patent is Silicon on Insulator. It is owned by IBM. AMD has been using it some time now and it has allowed their processors to use less power than with conventional silicon. It is rumored that Intel approached IBM in order to license this technology but that IBM wanted to trade tech instead of making a cash deal.

So Intel is playing some cat and mouse with IBM. Right now, the IBM guys are probably laughing at the power consumption of Intel's processors - they're winning. So, in the near future, when you see that Intel has licensed a pretty bit of their technology to IBM, don't be surprised. Intel needs SOI and they're going to pay dearly for it.

Desktop CPUs are only a fraction of Intel

[stratjakt]

They aren't "staying in the game", they are the game.

Wake me when AMD provides complete solutions, chipset, motherboard, with integrated audio and video.

Intel is upgrading because 8 years is a long, long time for a modern chip fab. The "we'll make chips cheaper than AMD" crap is just investor PR.

AMD is only a threat to but one small fraction of Intel's business.

More Intel ideas...

[bje2]

take all the money that's going into those crappy blue man group commericals, and use it for some R&D...i hate those commercials...

What standard is AMD usinng to declare "Dominance"

[raitchison]

"AMD has declared dominance in the gaming and server microprocessor market in 2004: I've yet to see an AMD equipped server. If even 5% of all servers are equipped with AMD processors I'll be amazed. This reminds me of when the CEO of Pepsi released a book deatailing how Pepsi "Won the cola wars". I'm sorry if your still #2 in sales you didn't "win" and if you have only begun to break into the marked you certianly aren't "Dominance" For one, I think that AMD is doing great things with their new stuff (been syaing for years they need to do more than just clone Intel CPUs) and that Intel would be wise in paying attention to what AMD is doing but declaring dominance, at least in the server market is kind of like Ralph Nader declaring victory in October.

MHz rather than FPS

[frovingslosh]

is a past Intel decision to concentrate on MHz rather than FPS

Translation: At Intel we decided to put our effort into having a CPU that had an insanely high clock speed, which we decided was much more important than actually getting the CPU to do a lot of processing, which would help contribute to higher frame rates for games and higher output for most users. Our evil competitor AMD realized that it was important to have the computer do something with the cycles they used, and built CPUs that not only did more, but did more at slower clock speeds. We are trying to figure out why this allowed them to win in a market we previously owned, but so far we've only come up with this MHz rather than FPS marketing phrase.

Re:"...how fast we respond"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they might respond by pulling legacy 16-bit support completely out of their chips (which I'm led to believe is costing them about 30% of their chips' "capacity" (as measured by power consumption and real estate) and replacing it with an emulator.

Um ... Intel has been doing something like that since the Pentium Pro, and all out that since the P3. The instruction set you put in and the instruction set it actually runs are totally different beasts. The internal micro-ops even get access to more registers (check out "register renaming")

Bank for your buck

[gandell]

The reason I'm looking at AMD for my next upgrade is price. I simply get more for my money with AMD than with Intel.
Intel's spending 2B to upgrade its facilities, but who's paying? We are, that's who. So if chipset prices go up again, AMD will still be on top for the cheapskates among us.

They're missing the point entirely

[melted]

When XBox 2 comes out neither Intel nor AMD will be the main players in the gaming market. The main players will be IBM, NVidia and ATI.