Saturn V

Intel Is Still Bogged Down by Atom Processor

Robert has a done a very poor analysis and an amateurish hatchet job.

He is unfamiliar with the concept of "chip yield" for a semiconductor wafer. The Penryn die being several times larger than the Atom will have a much poorer yield. No account of the yield.

He has the pricing all wrong. Yes he compares the High End Penryn cost vs the Atom cost. A lot of the Penryns are branded as Celerons, and Pentiums by down binning or deliberatlely crippling the product at final inspection. The cost of manufacture of Core 2, Pentium and Celeron are practically the same, but are sold in a range of $50 to $200 depending on the market demand. If you compare the Celeron to a Atom, Intel makes more profit on a Atom chip than on a Celeron. This issue was discussed at length by Stacey Smith in a conference call last fall, and this writer is totally ignorant.

The profitability of Atom is not an issue. Atom has expanded the market,and is more profitable than the Celeron which is its neares competitor. The biggest danger with the Atom is that the customers might think that the performance of the Atom is "good enough", and might avoid the Core 2. Yes the Core 2 is a much more profitable part, and if this behaviorial change happens, Intel profits might drop in the future. So far this has not happened.

Rumors Cloud the Intel - Nvidia Turf War

This author is a brainless nitwit. He is just regurgitating the NVDIA hype.

If he toned down he NVDIA hype and presented a full and balanced picture he would be worth reading. He sounds like a "paid schill.

Nationwide WiMAX: Who Benefits?

You seem to have a big lack of vision. I ran into a lot of people with a similar mindset 20 years ago, when cellular telephony was in its infancy. A lot of financial analysts and rag writers, commented, " I have a phone in my house, and I have a phone on my desk. Why would me or anyone want a phone for the car or else where."
There is built in market for Laptops. I love WiFi but its limited range and availability, and a lack of a standardized carriers are real problems. I have a tough time using my Laptop at Airports consistently. Elsewhere it is a real doubtful case. WiMax ends those issues.

iPhone is just the leading edge of devices, which will make WiMax look brilliant. Presently internet access on cell phones is a joke. Newer devices will make Wimax just as ubiquitous as cell phone coverage.

Maybe cell phones will even dissappear, having being absorbed into iPhone type devices. That is why existing Carriers like Verizon and ATT are the biggest opponents of WiMax. They see the future and are terrified. So they are doing their best trying to derail WiMax. They dont have much of a hope, because WiMax will take off in places like India and other countries without mass internet coverage. This will give WiMax the huge international economies of scale, that the solutions proposed by Verizon, ATT will never take off.

The Tellurium Supernova

[...minor edits of same post]

Ovonics has had the same "potential" for the last 35 years.Intel worked with Ovonics in the early 70's, and scrubbed it. Almost 10 years ago, Intel went back to Ovonics, and it is still a no-show.

I am skeptical about the claims.I have seen so many technologies claim that they were going to dislodge DRAMs, and waste a lot of investors money in the process.The pace of progress in the semiconductor memory is so fast, the volumes and the economies of scale are so huge, that it has been impossible for any challenger to make an impact.Unless the traditional memory technologies run into a major roadblock, the prognosis for a challenger is grim.

NAND FLASH memory is also on a tear, but it has some performance limitations like number of erase cycles etc.That may present an opening for Ovonics style devices to exploit, since the new technology will inevitably cost more, and it needs a strong foothold in the performance area to have any chance of survival.If it can meet the write erase cycle challenge at almost the same cost of NAND FLASH, it may end up replacing rotating memories for ultraportable computers.

But I would not buy Tellurium stocks as yet.

The Tellurium Supernova

Ovonics has had the same potential for the last 35 years.Intel worked with Ovonics in the early 70's, and scrubbed it. Almost 10 years ago, Intel went back to Ovonics, and it is still a now show.

I am skeptical about the claims.i have seen so many technologies claim that they were going to dislodge DRAMs, and waste a lot of investors money in the process.The pace of progress in the semiconductor memory is so fast, the volumes and the economies of scale are so huge, that it has been impossible for any challenger to make an impact.Unless the traditional memory technologies run into a major roadblock, the prognosis for a challenger is grim.

NAND FLASH memory is also on a tear, but it has some performance limitations like number of erase cycles etc.That may present an opening for Ovonics style devices to exploit, since the new technology will inevitably cost more, and it needs a strong foothold in the performance area to have any chance of survival.

AMD Needs a Multi-Core Killer App

sramana,
You seem to be a victim of the AMD propaganda machine. Specifically you state 'but several agencies did the testing and ultimately gave AMD the thumbs up.". the reality is that the relative performance was a mixed bag, depending on the applications used, AMD lost on performance in most cases. AMD only won in high bandwith,multi-sockete... applications,which is a small subset of the market.The loss in other segments was a major reason in AMD major financial losses for the last 3 quarters.

The reality is that AMD has gained a tiny market share by selling its products at a loss. Its Average Selling price in the High Performance Markets has collapsed, and it is reduced to a "value vendor".

Unfortunately the latest Barcelona chip is not the promised savior. It is losing even more performance benchmarks to Intel's Penryn chip family.

AMD has stubbornly refused to downsize, and the red ink continues to flow with no end in sight. A restructuring is needed, or AMD desperately needs some one to bail them out, someone who can stomach losing $500 million every quarter.