Daniel Bizó (dbizo@idc.com) on 3/16/11 wrote:
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>David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 3/14/11 wrote:
>
>>
>>Yes. Or unless their competitors start moving into areas >>that mitigate the IDM advantage.
>>
>>David
>
>
>David, could you take a little time and elaborate on what >you are thinking of when
>you say areas that mitigate the IDM advantage? Because it is >not completley clear to me and would be curious.

That depends on the IDM : ) In essence, an IDM is likely to make a different set of trade offs from a foundry. In some cases that achieves better results, but in other cases the results will be suboptimal.

For example, in the past Intel's process was utterly unsuitable for low power applications. Even their 45nm SOC process is suboptimal in many ways. So there was no IDM advantage (for Intel) in that specific market. When they have a good SOC process, they might have an advantage, but we'll have to see...

As another example, Intel's restrictive design rules are partially why they are able to get away with less aggressive lithography than many competitors. That comes with a density penalty, which in some cases may be relevant.

As another example, IBM uses SOI. That gives them an advantage in certain cases, but increases variable cost. For most high volume applications that is a huge problem. But that's not an issue for IBM.

David