Slashdot Mirror
For AMD Success Means Problems
An anonymous reader writes "AMD's success with its dual-core Opteron and Athlon processors has created something of a happy problem for the company. It can't make its products fast enough to meet demand. Just the same, with the Intel price war heating up and new 65-nanometer manufacturing technology being implemented in its factories, AMD has a lot of balls in the air right now." From the News.com article: "AMD's current pickle is the result of its success, which makes it a little easier to swallow for company executives. Demand is high, but the company's dual-core processors still use its 90-nanometer manufacturing technology. Intel's chips, on the other hand, are built using the smaller transistors provided by its 65-nanometer manufacturing technology. Not only is AMD using larger transistors, but its dual-core Opteron and Athlon 64 processors contain two processing cores integrated onto a single piece of silicon, or a die. This design has given AMD great performance during the past few years, but resulted in processors that were almost twice the size of its single-core chips."
To all those AMD fanboi's that cried "Why not AMD"? when Apple choose Intel, this is why.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against AMD, I like there fact there is healthy competition in the chip world. Makes for better/faster/cheaper products for us consumers.
For AMD, a bigger die per chip means fewer chips per wafer.
Which is a problem, when you can't manufacture enough to meet demand.
the consumer wins. I was an AMD fan boy for the past few years, but like a true Chicago fan, I am rooting for the other team because they are up. AMD may strike back again, maybe not, but this price war has really benefited many of us.
This is not a new problem for AMD. They have always had problems keeping up with demand, and they have been capacity constrained for a few years now, and they have nobody to blame but themselves.
That's the dirty little secret about the semiconductor industry- success depends just as much on manufacturing ability as the features of the chip. Intel didn't just get their 300mm wafers and 65nm process overnight- they invested 10s of billions of dollars in manufacturing R&D. The result is they have unparalleled capacity and a huge technological lead over competitors with manufacturing technology. When a large OEM comes asking for 5 million units in the next quarter with a defect rate of less than 500 per million, there are very few companies that can deliver.
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Actually, it's not a problem at all. It's a good thing. If AMD were already producing 45nm chips, and they were twice the size and slower than Intel's solution, THAT would be a problem. When you are doing well enough that you are outselling your ability to produce, and you still have not yet implemented your already developed technology, you are in a very good position.
That's the traditional thing to do when demand outstrips your ability to supply.
Deleted