AMD 300mm fab in Dresden?

Looks like AMD might be settling on building a brand new plant in Dresden
after all. There was a competition between Dresden, Germany, and East
Fishkill, NY (alongside IBM). But it looks like AMD's fab partner is going
to be the German government, not IBM. Since the German govt doesn't seem to
do too much IC design work, I don't think AMD is going to have too much
trouble monopolizing the production at this plant.

The shortlist included Austin, Texas as well, where it would've established
a plant next to its existing Fab 25.

It's also interesting that they seem to be preferring a brand new building
rather than putting an addition onto Dresden's existing Fab 30.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20031115171533.html

Yousuf Khan

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 17:01:05 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<removethisspam.bjsk90.removethispam DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:

 >Looks like AMD might be settling on building a brand new plant in Dresden
 >after all. There was a competition between Dresden, Germany, and East
 >Fishkill, NY (alongside IBM). But it looks like AMD's fab partner is going
 >to be the German government, not IBM. Since the German govt doesn't seem to
 >do too much IC design work, I don't think AMD is going to have too much
 >trouble monopolizing the production at this plant.
 >
 >The shortlist included Austin, Texas as well, where it would've established
 >a plant next to its existing Fab 25.
 >
 >It's also interesting that they seem to be preferring a brand new building
 >rather than putting an addition onto Dresden's existing Fab 30.
 >
 >http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20031115171533.html
 >
 > Yousuf Khan
 >
"The only thing we need now is approval from the parliament committee
on the 336 million euros ($396 million) loan guarantee," a source told
Reuters in the report. "We could have the groundbreaking for the new
plant as soon as the end of next week."

Guess New York and Texas got outbid.

The price tag is also weird:

"SiliconStrategies outlined the cost of the new foundry - 1.1 billion
Euro ($1.3 billion). The sum is not huge at all, moreover, it may be
considered as strangely low, to tell you the truth. As AMD’s Chairman
Jerry Sanders admitted at Semico Summit conference in Scottsdale,
Arizona in early March this year, the cost of a leading-edge fab is
heading towards $4 billion. Analysts estimated that a bit less
advanced facilities that make use of 0.13 micron technologies cost
around $2 to $3 billion some time ago. Total investments in AMD’s
Fab30 also located in Dresden, Germany are expected to reach $2.5
billion by 2003, while the initial investment was about $1.9 billion."

Sounds like AMD will be "leasing" alot of capital equipment. Good
time to be making such a move. It is a buyer's market.

RM<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->