Chip Makers Delay a Merger of Their Memory Divisions
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STMicroelectronics and Intel announced a delay in the merger of their unprofitable memory units.
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Worldwide&#160;lawsuits against Intel&#160;and&#160;four straight quarterly losses&#160;have distracted AMD during its integration of ATI Technologies, but the merger remains on track, according to industry analysts.
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Intel will miss its 2004 product cost-reduction targets because of a widely publicized string of product delays and problems, but those missteps are largely behind it now, the world&#39;s largest chipmaker said on Tuesday.
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At this morning's analyst conference, AMD executives said they may scale back some on R&D. But earlier in the week, partner IBM unveiled a plan that could help fill the gap: a way to rework existing 45 nm parts designs for 32 nm.
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Concerns over AMD's succession plans come at a difficult time for the company, and revive that old tug-of-war between marketing and engineering.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) may yet team up with another chip maker for the construction of a semiconductor fabrication plant (fab) to expand its manufacturing capacity for microprocessors, despite shelving similar plans in 2003, according to a senior company executive.
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Analysts are suggesting that AMD may be forced to delay its Barcelona multi-core chip, a move that could set the company back both financially and strategically.
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The chipmaker appears to have met its most recent deadline for production of the smaller-featured chips.
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In an announcement strategically timed to lessen its impact, SanDisk admits that it must cut prices to stay competitive in a tougher NAND memory chip market. Layoffs and salary cuts for executives are also planned.
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Chip giant will need to introduce integrated memory controllers or redesign its frontside bus, analysts say.
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Chipmaker to focus on technology and features instead of megahertz.
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Chipmaker is moving forward in networking and storage after nearly two years of reorganizing its chip business.
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U.S. government antitrust regulators have asked Intel Corp. and STMicroelectronics NV to provide more information about theirÂ plan to spin off their flash memory unit into a new company, the vendors said Thursday.
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In recent months, Intel delayed several chips and recalled other, defective ones. It overestimated demand, thereby causing an inventory glut.
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With Christmas just 11 days away, you have to wonder what Hector Ruiz is going to find under his tree. It&#8217;s been a terrible year for Advanced Micro Devices, and the chipmaker&#8217;s analysts conference on Thursday did nothing to spread holiday cheer.Confirming what many in the chip world had suspected for some time, CEO Ruiz and other AMD execs fessed up that bugs in its new quad-core Barcelona server and Phenom desktop chips will&#160;delay these key next-generation technologies.The technical problems will delay general availability of the fastest version of the chips for three or four months. Customers willing to settle for slower clock speeds will be able to get the processors sooner; for example, AMD will ship a 2 gigahertz version of the Barcelona first, instead of the expected 2.5 gigahertz speed. In either case, the chips will be close to a year late; the original target date was the first quarter of 2007.AMD STUMBLES AS INTEL SPEEDS AHEADThe problem couldn&#8217;t come at a worse time. AMD has struggled all year to close the performance gap between its high-end chips and Intel&#8217;s. Barcelona, the company had promised, would restore its technical supremacy. Indeed some analysts said they had expected the quad-core server chip to do just that. &#8220;At 2.5 gigahertz it would have beaten any Intel products,&#8221; said analyst Nathan Brookwood of Insight64. &#8220;But at 2 gigahertz, it&#8217;s bringing up the rear,&#8221; he said.Intel, meanwhile, has corrected many of the problems that dogged it earlier in the decade. &#8220;AMD isn&#8217;t competing against the Intel of two years ago,&#8221; said Dean McCarron of Mercury Research. Intel has had quad-core chips in the market for about a year. To be fair, its chips are based on a somewhat simpler design; Intel gets to four cores by packaging two dual-core chips together. By contrast, AMD&#8217;s design integrates four cores on one chip, a more efficient solution, said McCarron. Except that AMD&#8217;s approach reduces yields and thus raises manufacturing costs, he added.There was earlier speculation that Barcelona&#8217;s problems were related to the ATI graphics chipset, but the problem turns out to be deeper, at the chip level. AMD has said it is related to the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) in the processor&#39;s L3 cache.DOUBTS ABOUT A QUICK FIXIn the Thursday conference, analysts had expected discussion of the company&#8217;s &#8220;asset light strategy,&#8221; which will apparently entail outsourcing more manufacturing to foundries such as Chartered Semiconductor or TSMC. But they didn&#8217;t get it, and the lack of details made CEO Ruiz&#8217;s promise to return to profitability in 2008 less credible to Wall Street. AMD&#8217;s financial performance has been terrible, losing money for four straight quarters. Part of the reason: Intel and AMD have engaged in a bloody price war, a struggle that has been very tough on the smaller company&#8217;s profit margins. But the Barcelona and Phenom delays are serious self-inflicted wounds.AMD&#8217;s stock lost another few points yesterday and has now shed about 40% in the last two months and a bone-jarring 56% since the beginning of the year. At $8.84 a share, Thursday&#8217;s closing price, the stock is at its lowest ebb since the summer of 2003. Ironically, AMD has so far&#160;rewarded Ruiz with pay raises.
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Faced with two technologies, companies are already picking sides over intregrating flash memory into PCs.
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The Chartered announcement had been signaled when AMD and IBM extended a chip processing deal in September. While the deal centered on jointly developed technology, it also left AMD the option