It's not THAT bad

Story: Ruiz Out, Meyer In At AMDTotal Replies: 11
Author Content
jezuch

Jul 19, 2008
1:40 AM EST
Quoted:
So much for only losing $200 million this quarter. At face value, AMD lost $1.19 billion this quarter, on revenue of $1.35 billion. The biggest loss (and biggest change) since last week was that for the second time AMD has taken a write-down on ATI, this time to the tune of $876 million. In the present-term this is a correction of the value of ATI within AMD’s books, but it’s also ongoing proof that AMD paid too much for ATI. The bit of good news here is that write-offs are not the same thing as actually losing money (even though they are calculated against net income), so AMD isn’t $1.19 billion poorer (not that they could afford to be). Real (operating) losses are around $275 million before factoring in AMD’s one-time sale of old 200mm manufacturing equipment, after which operating losses drop to $143 million, a far more minor hit against what cash AMD still has. Furthermore this means losses are reduced compared to Q2 of last year, a positive sign for the company.


[HYPERLINK@www.anandtech.com]
TxtEdMacs

Jul 19, 2008
4:05 PM EST 		Sorry, I distrust those numbers. Either they are incorrect or AMD pulled a miracle pulling along side Intel!

Quoted:
... AMD’s one-time sale of old 200mm manufacturing equipment


Are you aware that 25.4 mm = 1 inch? Therefore, the old dies had almost eight inch channels, their early chips must have been enormous. How did they stay in business? Even mainframes could not hold them. But history is history and they survived to fight Intel to a near draw on their lower power units. And then be first out with a X86 dual core. Now if the EU pins anti competitive actions on Intel, they have a chance to be a big player.

Indeed, if you see that equipment on eBay, buy it. I predict some museum will pay a fortune to get those rusty, over sized dies into their collection. I wonder did AMD do tool and die work for one of the old line of auto manufactures like American Motors, Studebaker, Packard or others?
gus3

Jul 19, 2008
5:32 PM EST 		"200mm" should probably be "200nm".
theboomboomcars

Jul 19, 2008
6:13 PM EST 		The 200mm is correct. It's the diameter (i think) of the wafer that they put the holds the processor dies. AMD has been upgrading from 200mm to 300mm so they can make more processors per run.

Although one thing I don't understand, and I haven't been able to find any info on, is why they use a circle wafer to make rectangle dies on.
gus3

Jul 19, 2008
7:01 PM EST 		The circle wafer is the result of the wafer formation process. A solid silicon sliver is inserted into molten silicon, then rotated while the silicon solidifies. The result will always be a cylinder.
jezuch

Jul 20, 2008
1:47 AM EST 		I'm sorry, but I'll assume that editors of AnandTech know what they're talking about :)
theboomboomcars is correct, it's about the diameter of silicon wafers. 200mm is the old one, 300mm is the new one.
And, BTW, I live in a SI country, I don't understand what an "inch" is ;)
TxtEdMacs

Jul 20, 2008
2:56 AM EST 		Something is wrong with this thread. Make an asinine comment and what do I get? Calm conversation seeking thoughtful, logical explanations to explain a spurious assertion. Where is the unadulterated strongly held stupid opinions I was trying to elicit? Where did I go wrong?

This is LXer, right? I can only conclude, I have dropped in on the wrong group, too rational.
Scott_Ruecker

Jul 20, 2008
6:07 AM EST 		Someone stop TxtEdMacs before he strikes again!!!!!!!!!
jdixon

Jul 20, 2008
6:37 AM EST 		> I can only conclude, I have dropped in on the wrong group, too rational.

Well, I can go get Bob, and we can start discussing the philosophical, economic, and political aspects of 200mm vs 300mm wafers; which would be sure to get the thread shut down. Would that help?

Short synopsis: Size does matter. :)
Scott_Ruecker

Jul 20, 2008
6:42 AM EST 		It better! LOL!!!
gus3

Jul 20, 2008
7:04 AM EST 		@jezuch:

And remember, one inch on the Interwebs is one-half inch in reality.
theboomboomcars

Jul 20, 2008
12:54 PM EST 		Thanks gus, now I know. And if GI Joe was right knowing is half the battle.

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