Jul

30

Breaking Free from Intel’s Monopoly?

Filed Under Microprocessor, PC Industry, Video Gallery | Leave a Comment

Coming to the end of July, there are two news on Intel. One good and one bad. Bad new first. The European Commission has issued a Statement of Objections, formally charging Intel with violating the European Union’s competition laws by abusing its monopoly position in the global microprocessor market and stating that “in the short, medium and long-term, we think that the actions of Intel are bad news for competition and consumers” (Ref). According to the EC’s formal charge sheet, Intel has:

  • Provided substantial rebates to various OEMs conditional on them obtaining all or the great majority of their CPU requirements from Intel.
  • Made payments in order to induce an OEM to either delay or cancel the launch of a product line incorporating an AMD-based CPU.
  • In the context of bids against AMD-based products for strategic customers in the server segment of the market, Intel offered CPUs on average below cost.

On the good news, Intel has already begun releasing Caneland platform (including microprocessor and chipset) to its OEM partners, and is ramping up the product for a third-quarter launch (Ref). The details of the caneland platform were posted on the Intel company blog (Blog@Intel). The blog offered a six-minute interview with Kirk Skaugen, vice president and General Manager of Intel’s Server Products Group. The interview video is shown here.

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Jul

25

IBM Bigger and STM Leaner

Filed Under Foundry, Semiconductor Industry, Video Gallery | Leave a Comment

Another long-time rumor comes true. STMicroelectronics joins the IBM CMOS technology alliance which also includes Chartered, Samsung, Infineon and Freescale (Ref). This is not a big surprise. Many people has somehow guessed it given the fact that two critical members of STM-led Crolles alliance, NXP and Freescale, have successively left the Crolles alliance last year (Crolles2 merging with IBM alliance?). With STM on board, IBM’s alliance is getting much bigger. It is interesting to note that Japanese semiconductor companies have not joined the IBM bandwagon in bulk CMOS common platform. On the contrary, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and NEC are even in discussion to form their own alliance to compete with IBM and TSMC (Ref).

On the other hand, STMicroelectronics has undergone substantial organization restructuring in recent months to focus on their core competences and make the company more lean. Two months ago, the company spun off its memory business unit (What’s next after the Flash Bang?) and the new spin-off company has officially named as “Numonyx” few days ago(Ref). At the same time, STM exited its manufacturing in US and closed 3 plants (Ref).

I post here one IBM ads with the slogan “I am not like Everybody Else”. The message of the ads is companies need to do whatever they could to differentiate itself from others to survive in the bloodly competitive industry.

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