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Poll: Intel Retools

Can Intel Regain their Market Share

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#1 Nvyseal

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Posted 30 May 2006 - 06:04 PM

Intel Relentlessly Pursues Cutting Edge

The glass-encased room inside Intel Corp.'s microchip factory here, with its shiny, metallic surfaces and frigid air, is a world away from the blistering sun and brown earth outside. An army of robots suspended from the vast ceiling glide from one refrigerator-sized machine to the next. Their cargo: thousands of 12-inch silicon platters that form the raw material for Intel's most sophisticated computer microprocessor to date.

Inside this chip fabrication plant on the outskirts of Phoenix, engineers clad in what look like space suits are six months into a dramatic overhaul that could determine Intel's future as it faces its stiffest competition in more than a decade.

Intel closed the factory, officially known as Fab 12, for 18 months and spent $2 billion to retool it with more than 800 machines that follow a new manufacturing recipe cooked up more than four years ago and is already in place at a plant in Oregon. By year's end, the process will be up and running in a total of four fabs.

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"Nobody ramps a technology at the rate we do," says Intel Vice President Tom Franz. "I'd be willing to stand up and say that in front of anybody, including our competitors.

he overhaul is part of Intel's and the rest of the semiconductor industry's relentless quest to shrink the size of its circuitry so more transistors fit onto the same size chips. For decades, the industry has doubled the number of transistors on a chip every two years or so, a pace that has become known as Moore's Law, after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted it in a 1965 article.

Because it allows a new generation of smaller, faster products at roughly the same cost as earlier ones, Moore's Law has provided a growth engine that separates the electronics industries from virtually every other business.

But no other company spends as much money as Intel adhering to the law's rigorous demands, and as a result the payoff from more efficient factories is higher. Intel, which has spent $25.3 billion on new equipment over the past five years and is the world's largest chip maker, also gets important competitive advantages from its uncontested role as manufacturing champion.

"If you're the person that's setting the pace and setting the course, everybody else is chasing you and it's a lot easier to stay in the lead," says analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.

Thanks to Moore's Law, Intel's Core Duo microprocessor, being manufactured in Chandler, is small enough to fit on the nail of an adult pinky finger. If it was made using the process considered state-of-the-art in the early 1990s, its 151 million transistors would take up as much space as compact disc jewel case.

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#2 Nvyseal

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Posted 30 May 2006 - 09:11 PM

I think if Intel can spend 25.3 billion, they are tooling up of a bunch of new generation chips. They will be leapfrogging over AMD soon

#3 Linoman

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Posted 01 June 2006 - 10:46 AM

You know I know this might sound strange but I think for many years to come. Intel vs Amd will be like a scale everynow and then it will tip towards Intel and then other times to Amd. I think its good if that happens it will make sure both companies are on their toes.

#4 simon

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Posted 01 June 2006 - 01:07 PM

Intel will never catch AMD. AMD has always jump ahead of Intel when they started too catch up

#5 Roadrunner

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Posted 07 August 2006 - 03:36 AM

Although AMD gained market share during the last couple years, they did not take full advantage of their superior product and manufacture enough of them at a competitive price to win over as large a share as they could have. I mean, people were still buying Intel for no reason but they thought that was the way to go. AMD sold to those who knew computers but the average Joe went with the marketing Ads- and AMD did very little marketing.
Well Intel did not just lay down and let AMD have as many customers as they could get either. They now have Conroe, and any edge AMd had is now gone for the next few months at least. Conroe is faster, cooler and costs less than a similiar AMD product. So now AMD is faced with not gaining market share, but losing what share they have.

#6 Nvyseal

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Posted 08 August 2006 - 03:02 AM

time will tell, AMD is betting on the x4 factor!

#7 clarky3429

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Posted 08 August 2006 - 03:36 AM

they will - this happens all the time....intel are in front, then amd then intel etc

#8 David_Heavey

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Posted 08 August 2006 - 09:46 AM

I had to vote yes for this one :blush:

Edited by David_Heavey, 08 August 2006 - 09:46 AM.


#9 BlueScreenOfDeath

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Posted 08 August 2006 - 02:26 PM

if AMD lets up and doesnt stay on top of things then yea they will but more than likely if AMD keeps the heat on Intel they will slowly gain market share from Intel bit by bit

#10 atsaunier

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Posted 10 August 2006 - 05:54 AM

i think intel will make a come back, then amd will come back then intel, seems to be the way it works :lol:

#11 m.oreilly

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Posted 10 August 2006 - 06:22 AM

i think Roadrunner expressed a most succinct view. and i don't think AMD will fumble this again...




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