Friday, December 17, 2004

Intel and the Hydra
As much as I know this is going to tick off the AMD folk in the crowd, this is what's often called "the other shoe." Michael Kanellos reports this morning that Intel's plans for multicore processors isn't stopping ay just the dual level next year. Four and eight core versions will almost certainly arrive thereafter and even higher core ratios should show up for supercomputers. Basically, as the size of the die and its components continue to shrink, once Intel has reached what it considers an optimum circuit count, it will start to use the extra space available (typically slated for more cache, etc.) for additional core construction. Naturally, we should all suspect that the die sizes will rise again and that cooling issues will emerge. In the time frame, however, they are solvable in their respective domains. (Heroin addicts will routinely enroll in Methadone treatment programs not for a cure, but to reduce the level of their dependency on the drug --so they can go back on the streets with the expectation of a better high again. Sorry it's such a gross analogy for some, but it's the most substantive one I know for Intel's recent retrenchment from speed.)

So what's all this have to do with AMD? Some inferences about AMD's recent strained silicon on insulator announcement can be made. On the surface, it would seem that this move is not the "forging ahead" strategy that many thought. It may well put AMD ahead of Intel for a relatively short period, but again we're faced with the question of whether or not AMD can sustain its case against the massive budgets available at Intel. That's not really been a possibility in the past. This is not a judgment call as to who is making the better CPU. It's all a matter of business. If AMD's SS-SOI news was it's other shoe, there may be a problem.

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