Intel at 4 GHz??? Come on Motorola...

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Comments

  • Reply 121 of 170
    Eric, reading both the Register article and the Microprocessor Report:



    i think the Register is full of bull. The register also fell for the G5 hype. The Mircroprocessor report (written in 1999) says Power5 will be mid decade or so. Following industry trends, everybody's estimates are nearly always premature. I'm a bit of a pessimist as far as delivery dates are concerned



    Either way I don't find the evidence compelling that there will be a Power5 by 2003. Surely there would have been an official announcement, especially since IBM is a PR whore of epic proportions . If Power5 were released in 2003, it would have to tape-out at least in the next few months.
  • Reply 122 of 170
    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>

    But in any case. Apple decided that Motorola would blend their new 80k chip with IBM's POWER. thusly making? the PowerPC. [...]

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    I didn't know that Apple was so involved in the design, and thought they were coming at from more of a customer perspective (I've heard they looked hard at Sparc, Alpha, and even x86) -- thanks for the info.



    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>

    was something for Apple's new CHRP(Also known as PPCP) computer. the only non Apple machines that would run Win NT on a PPC were going to be Apple licenced clones. which would also run Solaris, AIX, OS/2 and of course the Macintosh System Software. CHRP was actually ready to ship. except? the only reason CHRP failed is the same as OpenDoc. Apple. for no reason whatsoever. sayed "No".

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Nope -- Several years before CHRP, IBM and Moto released a spec called PReP, designed to support NT, OS/2, and AIX. Apple did not participate at all and apparently there was some fundamental incompatibilities with MacOS. These machines actually shipped, although IBM backed off when they realized that OS/2-PPC was never going to get off the ground.



    From all appearances, at the launch of PowerPC, Apple was insistent on their old strategy of being a single source provider. Maybe a year or two later, in desperation, Apple did a 180 and decided to support cloning. Only problem was that their OS wasn't properly abstracted from the hardware, which meant that the 'clone' companies had to buy PowerMac board designs from Apple. CHRP was the solution, and Apple planned to include CHRP support in the upcoming "Copeland" release.



    What happened? Motorola finally gave up selling Windows-based PPC machines, and Copeland never shipped, and Apple did another 180 and canned their clone strategy. CHRP support became pointless because you couldn't buy a CHRP board if you wanted to, and Apple wouldn't sell you the OS (for business reasons) anyway. For all we know, OS X has kick-ass CHRP support...



    Bottom line is that AIM was predicting 25-50% market penetration for PowerPC in the desktop space, and hopefully it's obvious that they weren't counting on MacOS to deliver all of that. They ended up with 4%, and that dictates a very different investment strategy in the architecture.



    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>

    allow me to tell you what they don't want you to know.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Conspiracy theories are interesting, and no doubt there was quite a bit of conspiracy going on. However, my opinion is that it's much more plausible that the massive investment in RISC chips in the early 90s were based on an incorrect business assumption, and that there were perfectly good reasons why this investment slacked off. Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC just never made it into the low end (NT) markets, primarily because Intel scaled up much further than anyone thought they would.



    In the case of DEC, they bet the company on Alpha, and lost. Where should that leave Alpha?



    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>

    "Super VLIW technology"!? ha ha ha ha *Ack* *Snort* . VLIW is probably one of the most laughed at computing designs there is.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hopefully you got the irony. The real question is did Intel just **** up, or did they deliberately mislead people in order to get RISC investment to slack off earlier than it should have? The companies without a backup plan (Compaq and HP) missed a lot of $$$ during the dotcom days.
  • Reply 123 of 170
    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>



    What "Windows PPC machines"? the _only_ PPCs that were supposed to run Windows NT were Apple licenced CHRP systems. they sold so poorly because they _didn't exist_.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    You got to be kidding. IBM PowerPersonal, Motorola PowerStack and 3rd party PReP boards were available, shipping, and widely advertised. There's millions of NT 4.0 CDs out there with PowerPC code on them -- that wouldn't be the case if there was no hardware to run it on.



    PReP was supposed to be an 'open platform' to rival the PC AT. There's no way that IBM & Moto would hand over a monopoly on that to Apple.
  • Reply 124 of 170
    blablablabla Posts: 185member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>

    the Alpha(Like nearly every other RISC chip on earth) would actually be cheaper than an 80x86 if produced in equivalent volumes.



    </strong><hr></blockquote>





    Yeah right.. Any RISC ( including thr Alpha) with a few 1000 pin-outs and a size of ~400 mm^2 should be cheaper than a x86.





    Sure the G4, and all those ~200 Mhz embedded RISCs should be cheaper, but those are not really high-end designs.



    Designing a CPU is always about finding the correct tradeoff point. A consumer CPU shouldnt cost much more than $150, but when the cost of making a SINGLE Power4 is around $1000 ( IBM doesnt make money on selling Power4, rather by selling solutions), I dont think we will EVER se a 150 watt, 400 mm^2, 5000 IO-pins design in the consumer space.



    Anyway.. did you guys notice the new IBM chip is E-book compatible, and got a DDR-sdram controller? An embedded design, but still interesting:



    <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/020311/039144.html"; target="_blank">http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/020311/039144.html</a>;
  • Reply 125 of 170
    [quote]Originally posted by rickag:

    <strong>Eric D.V.H

    Thank you for the history lesson, very interesting stuff.



    My question is when?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Motorola has been <a href="http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/oct01/101701.html"; target="_blank">shipping</a> a certain model of G5(The 8540) since mid-october(2001). as always. the ball is in Apple's court.



    [quote]Originally posted by rickag:

    <strong>It now appears that any G5 for Apple may be a long way off, as Motorola and Apple keep saying the G4 has plenty of room to grow. And the G5 at least initially will in all likelyhood be 32 bit.



    By the time a 64 bit G5 hits the market where will Intel's and AMD's 64 bit products be? Already in selling machines, either enterprise servers and/or desktops, ?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The G5 is already here. the question is: when will the PowerMac G5 arrive? my only answer is. whenever Apple feels like it. although 64-bit clean OS X is also a factor(Note: the 64-bit G5 runs 32-bit code just dandy too).



    Eric,
  • Reply 126 of 170
    thttht Posts: 5,420member
    <strong>Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    Motorola has been shipping a certain model of G5(The 8540) since mid-october(2001). as always. the ball is in Apple's court.</strong>



    Rickag, do you want to take care of this statement or should I? You did a good job of getting BadAndy to back off his pomposity about it.



    Btw, it's Motorola 88000 or 88k, not 80000. As I recall Motorola's contribution to the PowerPC architecture was the 88k's bus architecture.
  • Reply 127 of 170
    [quote]Originally posted by THT:

    <strong>Rickag, do you want to take care of this statement or should I? You did a good job of getting BadAndy to back off his pomposity about it.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Huh? this thing(The PPC 8540) _is_ a legit BookE G5. what on earth are you talking about?



    [quote]Originally posted by THT:

    <strong>Btw, it's Motorola 88000 or 88k, not 80000. As I recall Motorola's contribution to the PowerPC architecture was the 88k's bus architecture.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Thanks.





    Eric,
  • Reply 128 of 170
    [quote]Originally posted by blabla:

    <strong>Yeah right.. Any RISC ( including thr Alpha) with a few 1000 pin-outs and a size of ~400 mm^2 should be cheaper than a x86.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Didn't you know that the 21164 only had 499 pins? and the 21164PC only had 413 pins. also. the 21264 only had a 31mm(Not 31 mm^2) package size(Not die size. although I'm a tad confused of what the difference between a "Package" and a "Die" are ).



    [quote]Originally posted by blabla:

    <strong>Designing a CPU is always about finding the correct tradeoff point. A consumer CPU shouldnt cost much more than $150, but when the cost of making a SINGLE Power4 is around $1000 ( IBM doesnt make money on selling Power4, rather by selling solutions), I dont think we will EVER se a 150 watt, 400 mm^2, 5000 IO-pins design in the consumer space.<hr></blockquote>



    This is a bunch of chip maker's bologna. the per unit costs of a given chip consist of some tiny fraction of a cent. due to the fact of that the only expenses of a chip are a fraction of an ounce of various rare earths and metal impurities, the silicon from a handfull of beach sand and the price of a few watts of electricity to run the factory equipment. a chip's price is NOT from materially making it.



    I'll have to admit though. that they ARE justified in _some_ of the high prices of silicon chips. to a degree. the price per end market unit is inflated due to it's need to cover the immense costs of research, design, production equipment installation and chip fab reconfiguration. also. there's the general "High profit" nature of the computer industry.



    Most famed in this sort of thing is the zero overhead software industry(Requiring only to cover the livelyhoods of the programmers and the fraction of a cent price of the mass-stamped CD/DVDs). Chip companies have a fair amount of this(More truthfully expensive businesses. like the automotive industry for example. would kill for a profit structure like that <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> ). but it's softened to a much greater degree in the chip industry by a silicon chip's preproduction requirements.



    [quote]Originally posted by blabla:

    [QB]Anyway.. did you guys notice the new IBM chip is E-book compatible, and got a DDR-sdram controller? An embedded design, but still interesting:



    <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/020311/039144.html"; target="_blank">http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/020311/039144.html</a></strong><hr></blockquote>;



    <a href="http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC8540&nodeId=01M98655"; target="_blank">Been there. done that.</a>



    Eric,
  • Reply 129 of 170
    [quote]Originally posted by G-News:

    <strong>they already are in enterprise servers (itanium).</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The Itanium is a piece of garbage. if you were thinking of the McKinley. it's not here yet.



    [quote]Originally posted by G-News:

    <strong>The G5 is a big chance for apple to make a lot of past mistakes good. Somehow I feel they're going to **** up again.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Me too. I have vague memories of Motorola shipping some kind of G4 for some time before the PowerMac G4 as well. although I hope that Apple's just taking so long because they've been working on a _really_ stunning motherboard and OS to go along with the new G5 .





    Eric,
  • Reply 130 of 170
    [quote]Originally posted by johnsonfromwisconsin:

    <strong>Eric, reading both the Register article and the Microprocessor Report:



    i think the Register is full of bull. The register also fell for the G5 hype. The Mircroprocessor report (written in 1999) says Power5 will be mid decade or so. Following industry trends, everybody's estimates are nearly always premature. I'm a bit of a pessimist as far as delivery dates are concerned



    Either way I don't find the evidence compelling that there will be a Power5 by 2003. Surely there would have been an official announcement, especially since IBM is a PR whore of epic proportions . If Power5 were released in 2003, it would have to tape-out at least in the next few months.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yeah. but I think IBM is trying as hard as possible to kick the POWER5 into high gear. time will tell?



    Also. although this might be a _really_ silly question:



    What is "Taping out" in the CPU business? <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />



    \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t Eric,
  • Reply 131 of 170
    (To the Admins)



    Boy. these masses of posts look terrible to wade through. I wonder if UBB has a "String" option?





    Eric,
  • Reply 132 of 170
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    No I wasn't thinking about the McKinley, I was speaking of the Itanium, and only saying that, opposite to a previous post, saying it never shipped in systems, already had shipped in systems.

    That included no statement on its performance, design or efficiency whatsoever.



    G-News
  • Reply 133 of 170
    rickagrickag Posts: 1,626member
    Eric D.V.H



    I think what THT is referring to is a couple of posts I made on Arstechnic's Macintoshian Achaia message board.



    First let me say that BadAndy is a very knowledgable poster there(very knowledgable).



    He also contended that the MPC 8450 was a selling or available chip. Here's a link to a 10/17/01 Motorola press release concerning hte e500 core and MPC8450.



    <a href="http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,1958,568_322_23,00.html"; target="_blank">The link</a>



    [quote]Samples of the MPC8540 are expected to be available in the second half of 2002.<hr></blockquote>



    BadAndy sited the product summary page that listed a "where to buy" section as indicating it was currently available.<a href="http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC8540&nodeId=01M98655"; target="_blank">The link</a>



    I became somewhat sarcastic in what I hope was a good natured way and made some jokes concerning building my own computer, but need some tools. I hope I didn't offend any one.<a href="http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=3360953743&r= 6040919843#6040919843" target="_blank">My feeble attempt at sarcasm</a>



    Any way, I contacted all the "where to buy sites" and none of them listed the MPC8540. I also stumble across a list of all available processors manufactured by Motorola for the 1st quarter of 2002 and the MPC 8540 is not listed.



    I was in a foul mood in Jan. because I've been saving for 6 years to buy a new tower, had the money & Apple doesn't update squat on the towers in MWSF. I just bought a 7500 for $89 and a G4 400 Sonnet upgrade card $224 to tide me over until Apple has a real upgrade to the towers.



    I'll try to find the links later.



    [ 03-13-2002: Message edited by: rickag ]</p>
  • Reply 134 of 170
    razzfazzrazzfazz Posts: 728member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>

    It worked by using cutting edge software emulation(Which DEC called binary code translation) combined with the Alpha's incredible native speed to run 80x86 code(Read: Microsoft Windows/DOS executables) faster than a _real_ 80x86 chip. as well as running native Alpha code at it's usual blinding speed.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hm, this kinda sounds a lot like "fx!32" to me.



    Over here in Germany, famous el-cheapo computer maker Vobis once upon a time decided to sell not-so-cheap Alpha systems too (way ahead Mhz-wise at that time), and they included a software called "fx!32" that made it possible to execute WinNT/x86 binaries on WinNT/Alpha, which was what ran on that machine. This actually shipped in the mid-90s, but didn't seem to sell to well and was later discontinued.



    Bye,

    RazzFazz
  • Reply 135 of 170
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>



    Also. although this might be a _really_ silly question:



    What is "Taping out" in the CPU business? <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />



    \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t Eric,</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Taping out is a term used to describe the transfer of a completed and verified VLSI layout from the designer to a maskhouse for physical manufacturing of the photomasks. In the old days the layout schematics (which are many GB in size) were recorded onto tape drives as these were the only format capable of handling such large files. Thus the 'tapes' were sent 'out' to the mask shop. Today network infrastructure allows corporations to securely send their files over the internet to the mask shops for fabrication. In the case of IDM's that have their own internal mask shops like IBM and Intel tapeout is an internal transfer and thus little more than a milestone. For other companies it is an ongoing process of working with the mask shop to ensure design rules are followed, biasing is applied, and features like OPC added as necessary.
  • Reply 136 of 170
    thttht Posts: 5,420member
    Yes, the Motorola MPC 8540 is not shipping yet. No one can find a seller for it and no one can find one person that has one. And Motorola themselves say it won't be shipping until 2H 02. That's if Motorola is lucky. One wonders if it has even hit first silicon yet!



    Moreover, I'm tired of the 8540, and similarly IBM's 440, used as evidence of a hypothetical processor for Apple's supposed Power Mac G5. They are Book E processors. That's nothing for Apple to crow about, and IBM and Moto call the architecture "Book E" for a reason. Guess what the "E" stands for. We all better hope to whatever power one subscribes to that Apple does not use the 8540 in the desktops and portables.



    The only thing worthwhile in the 8540 I see is the Ocean switched fabric, and in Apple's case, it should be used in a core logic chipset rather than wasting the precious die acreage of the CPU. Otherwise, the 8540 is an embedded processor with no FPU and no AltiVec that clocks from 0.6 to 1 GHz on a 0.13 micron process. That's a 0.13 micron process. And specs out at 2300 mips and is not expected to ship in volume until 2H 02. That is not something for Apple to crow about unless they've got some super secret Darwin based PPC PDA or Tablet. Even then, I think the IBM 750fx might be better choice.



    Feh, the current 7455 G4 processor specs in at 2300 mips at 1 GHz on a 0.18 micron SOI process. It has the same integer performance as a 1 GHz 8540, has actual FPU and AltiVec, and is shipping in the current Power Macs only a mere year earlier than any probable 8540 hardware. Apple gains nothing with the 8540 chip and architecture.



    Motorola and Apple has some straight forward options. The easy way out is to add a second FPU to the 7455, modify the MPX bus for DDR, perhaps bumping one of the integer units to do multipy, divide et al, increasing the backside cache size, and increasing the issue and completion width to 4. Further down the road, modifying the cache design (I think super fast and huge (8 to 128 MB) backside cache is the way to go), modifying AltiVec to do 64 bit precision ops, extending the pipeline to 10 to 14 stages, and adding SMT.
  • Reply 137 of 170
    [quote] Originally posted by Eric:

    although I'm a tad confused of what the difference between a "Package" and a "Die" are <hr></blockquote>



    Well, here you are:



    The die is the actual piece of silicon that is the IC. This is after most every one of the ~100 processes has been performed on the wafer and the wafer has been cut apart into the individual dice.



    The Package is the plastic or ceramic "carrier", the lead frame (if used), and the pins (or ball grid / solder balls). This is much bigger than the die (although some people are have developed chip-scale-packages which are almost as small, but these are only good for low pin-count devices). They are normally much bigger, especially for MPUs because of the huge pin count, and for heat disapation reasons.



    When a chip manufacurer says XXX mm^2, they are talking about die size. They only really list the package size on the data sheet (you only care about that if you are doing board layout, but then I guess you never really care about die size at all; it just shows you how complexe and expensive it will be to manufacture). Hope that helps.



    [quote] Originally posted by Eric:



    This is a bunch of chip maker's bologna. the per unit costs of a given chip consist of some tiny fraction of a cent. due to the fact of that the only expenses of a chip are a fraction of an ounce of various rare earths and metal impurities, the silicon from a handfull of beach sand and the price of a few watts of electricity to run the factory equipment. a chip's price is NOT from materially making it.<hr></blockquote>



    This really isn't true. Sure, sand is cheap. But it costs a bundle to make it into a 99.99999999% pure single crystal the size of a punching bag. And that's just the beginning. The manufacture process is hugely expensive, in the chemicals they use, the capital equipment they must buy, the protocols they must follow, and the power (both man and energy) to run it all.



    Believe me. I walk the testing floor at Big Blue every day, and we have some of the test equipment here in our office. You would not believe how much it costs to run that stuff for even a month.



    However, I do agree with you that CD duplication is dirt cheap. The analogy just doesn't hold for Semi Manufacturing, however.



    (I know there are other knowledgable people here. If I made mistakes or oversights, please correct me.)



    God bless.
  • Reply 138 of 170
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    [quote]Originally posted by Transcendental Octothorpe:

    <strong>





    (I know there are other knowledgable people here. If I made mistakes or oversights, please correct me.)



    God bless.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    You are absolutely correct, but since I missed Eric's quote earlier I will continue from where your repsonse left off.



    [quote]This is a bunch of chip maker's bologna. the per unit costs of a given chip consist of some tiny fraction of a cent. due to the fact of that the only expenses of a chip are a fraction of an ounce of various rare earths and metal impurities, the silicon from a handfull of beach sand and the price of a few watts of electricity to run the factory equipment. a chip's price is NOT from materially making it.



    I'll have to admit though. that they ARE justified in _some_ of the high prices of silicon chips. to a degree. the price per end market unit is inflated due to it's need to cover the immense costs of research, design, production equipment installation and chip fab reconfiguration. also. there's the general "High profit" nature of the computer industry.



    Most famed in this sort of thing is the zero overhead software industry(Requiring only to cover the livelyhoods of the programmers and the fraction of a cent price of the mass-stamped CD/DVDs). Chip companies have a fair amount of this(More truthfully expensive businesses. like the automotive industry for example. would kill for a profit structure like that ). but it's softened to a much greater degree in the chip industry by a silicon chip's preproduction requirements.



    <hr></blockquote>



    Eric, you could not be more wrong. The semiconductor industry would kill to have a manufacturing structure as easy as the automotive industry. Do you have any idea of how semiconductors are manufactured? I wrote up a little thread a while back to try to help out people who had no experience in the field you might want to check out. <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000022"; target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000022</a>;



    The Semiconductor industry is by far the most capital intensive industry in the world. It is also the most technically advanced and precise. That technology and precision does not come cheap. The tools used inside a fab cost millions a piece, and in order to produce in any volume you require multiple pieces of each. A leading edge fab today costs $5 BILLION most of which is in capital equipment. And before you somehow try to rationalize that amount remember that leading edge in the semiconductor industry lasts 5 years at the max. GM and Ford are still producing cars in the same plants they have for decades.



    Tools change every year, they get more advanced and at the same time more expensive. The technology to produce the chips of 2005 does not even exist yet. It is being worked on in R&D labs which represent billions of dollars in investment. The tools of today did not exist in 1998. In addition to tools you have all the material costs. As Transcendental Octothorpe mentioned we use silicon that has been made ultra pure by various companies, we then pay companies to form this ultra pure Si into ingots and saw those ingots into wafers for us. A starting 8" wafer will at the minimum cost $50-$100. Then you have to buy and maintain some of the most pure chemicals and solvents in the world on a massive scale.



    Semiconductor Fabs use HUGE amounts of water and electricity, so much in fact that many towns are wary about new fab construction now of days and semi companies have to carefully scout for new water sources. The largest user of electricity and water in Austin, TX by far is Motorola, followed by AMD and Samsung. All using these resources for their fabs. Not only do the tools require MegaWatts of electricity but it must be delivered reliably with absolutely no voltage variation. This requires individual substations, investments in large voltage regulation systems and back up emergency power. These factories run 24 hours a day and employ thousands of very well paid employees .



    Now I know how much it costs to produce some chips but I can't say due to being under NDA and having some professional courtesy for competitors. But suffice to say when you say pennies you are a long ways off. And don't try to compare the chip industry with the CD duplication industry, you do a great deal of highly skilled, highly gifted people a disservice.
  • Reply 139 of 170
    thttht Posts: 5,420member
    <strong>Originally posted by Eskimo:

    The Semiconductor industry is by far the most capital intensive industry in the world. It is also the most technically advanced and precise.</strong>



    I have contention with this statement. It's the space industry that is by far the most capital intensive industry (if there actually is one) in the world. However, semicondunctors have the singular advantage of being profitable and the space industry has the disadvantage of being more of a cultural thing. So I guess you win there, that your industry is self-sustaining.



    <strong>A leading edge fab today costs $5 BILLION most of which is in capital equipment.</strong>



    $5G? Ha ha ha! That's nothing. 5 billion. We could suck down 5 billion and still not produce any hardware!



    Motorola tried to enter our business and got nothing but $2 billion worth of writeoffs! That should show them.



    <strong>And before you somehow try to rationalize that amount remember that leading edge in the semiconductor industry lasts 5 years at the max.</strong>



    At least your edge isn't 100 miles up with that stupid atmosphere messing with you on the way and a huge ass rock pulling you down.



    <strong>Tools change every year, they get more advanced and at the same time more expensive. The technology to produce the chips of 2005 does not even exist yet. It is being worked on in R&D labs which represent billions of dollars in investment. The tools of today did not exist in 1998.</strong>



    If you happen to invent some unobtainium and antigravity devices, please let us know. If antigravity is too much, how about some super-high energy content fuel? It's not fair to keep such things under NDA, especially since your R&D cycles are only 5 years. We've been working on unobtainium since we learned that air apparently isn't frictionless. It sure feels like it though.



    <strong>As Transcendental Octothorpe mentioned we use silicon that has been made ultra pure by various companies</strong>



    Hey! We could maybe help you there. We can provide a vacuum so vacuous that even the impurities would not dare enter into.



    <strong>Semiconductor Fabs use HUGE amounts of water and electricity, so much in fact that many towns are wary about new fab construction now of days and semi companies have to carefully scout for new water sources.</strong>



    Not many towns want 6 million pounds of oxidizer, fuel, and a match in their backyard either. It's even worse when we have to use super toxic chemicals and compounds. Then they demand to be upwind, at very least, which is better than the middle of nowhere I guess.



    <strong>Not only do the tools require MegaWatts of electricity but it must be delivered reliably with absolutely no voltage variation.</strong>



    Hey at least your variations don't results in a catastrophic explosions. And MegaWatts? Ha ha ha! I personally burned through 3.1 GigaWatts of power over a 6 day time period last December!



    <strong>And don't try to compare the chip industry with the CD duplication industry, you do a great deal of highly skilled, highly gifted people a disservice.</strong>



    Yeah, ditto with the space industry!



    And Eskimo, I think you should really rename yourself to Igjugarjuk, since really, claiming yourself to be a group of people instead of just being an individual of a group doesn't seem to be very representative. An oh, is that lake effect snow making you homesick?



  • Reply 140 of 170
    THT... are you high?



    <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
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