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From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,sci.econ
Subject: Re: Intel bugs / bugged by Intel :-(
Message-ID: <2857@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 90 16:22:04 GMT
References: <35325@cup.portal.com> <1990Oct30.210852.15087@mozart.amd.com> <8527@scolex.sco.COM> <1990Nov7.184237.22840@mozart.amd.com>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Followup-To: comp.arch
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 42

In article <1990Nov7.184237.22840@mozart.amd.com> brett@cayman.amd.com (Brett Stewart) writes:

|                                            Intel DOES derive monopoly
| pricing from the 386.  They sell it at many many many times the cost
| to make it.  

  Motorola has a monopoly on the 68000. What's your point? If the 386
costs too much the DOS people go 286, the workstation people go RISC.
Therefore the price stays down. I don't see all the sources for SPARC
making them so cheap people use them in bunches.

|                                         I dont.  And, I own and use
| PC's.  Probably, many of you on the net paid about $800 more for your
| 386-unix PC than you would have if Intel had honored its deal.

  Since the retail cost of the CPU is less than $800 I would really
like to know how you come up with that number. Partucularly since *my*
cost is < $800, and no matter what Intel charges the distributor and
retail vendor would still mark it up, as a chip or in a system.

|    2.)  Someone can argue that 386 pricing is near the level where
| 	it would be had not Intel breached, per 1. above.  I think
| 	this will be tough.  The 386 is about 70K square mils.  The
| 	29000 is about 175K square mils.  Silicon, folks, is
| 	silicon, and the 29000 perversely costs a lot less than a
| 	386.  The costs to make them go as die size, and that's just
| 	how it is.

  That's just not true. The cost is a factor of die size and process.
The cost of the same area in 2.5 micron CMOS (static memory) is a lot
less than the same area filled with 0.8 micron CMOS (a CPU). If it was
really cheaper to use less area everyone would use 6000 angstrom design
rules for everything, right?

  Since it seems AMD didn't deliver their part of the technology swap
(this part didn't make as many headlines), AMD can't claim to be without
fault in this case. Therefore why don't the people who are complaining
about this, most of whom seem to be from AMD, take this to alt flame.
It's not a proper issue for this group, if it ever was.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
      The Twin Peaks Halloween costume: stark naked in a body bag