Is AMD delaying volume ramp for some of their H2 parts?

Tuesday 03rd July 2007, 05:05:00 PM, written by Farid

Mark Osborne, Editor-in-Chief of the quite specialised Semiconductor Fabtech, ponders whether the latest information heard from the wafer maker Soitec is not a confirmation that AMD had to postpone the production of its new Opteron processors line, codenamed “Barcelona.”

AMD’s main SOI 300mm wafer supplier, Soitec, issued a warning yesterday stating that revenues will be down 15 percent from earlier expectations in H1 of the financial year. The company finished the 2006 financial year scoring a 70 percent revenue growth from its 300mm wafers, in part due to the arrival on the market of two new products, the PlayStation 3 and the Wii.

Mark Osborne argues the culprit for this lowered revenues expectation for Soitec is none other than AMD. Since he says the SOI demand for the three consoles hasn’t change much from the earlier previsions and that the only change doesn’t affect Soitec operations on the overall. And he also adds that the comment made by Soitec explaining this lowered forecast “really only relates to AMD, and trust [him] on this one, okay?”

As of now, it seems that Soitec has no indication as to when the ramp will actually happen, and a 2008 date is the most probable candidate.

AMD very recently announced that its newest quad-core Opteron would be shipping by August this year. This latest turn of events seems to contradict that notion. Unless AMD plans on rolling in a soft launch for 2007 and upgrade the production by 2008.

It’s also noteworthy that this Osborne’s article seems to be in line with yesterday’s claims of potential delays for the Phenom processors line. Process and performance related reasons were invoked as reasons for that delay. AMD denied that any change to its Phenom roadmap were made.
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amd ± opteron, barcelona, phenom

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