Re: for all those who have stopped listening, and are ranting now...

John_H wrote:

> When xilinx writes a PO for 100k devices _from_the_fab_ at $N per device,
> it's dumping if they sell that device for less than $N.

if they were selling bare die, then $N would be correct.

They are however selling packaged and tested parts, so all standard
burdens, labor, buildings, IP, etc apply to the cost -- not just die
cost from the fab.

John_H wrote:
> When the incremental sales are significant for a small percentage of Xilinx
> customers, this program should have a long, happy existence.
>
> Oh, and your flawless understanding of market dynamics has convinced me that
> Xilinx is a bad investment.  Yeah.

The Emperor's New Clothes ... even without clothes, he's still the
Emperor.

I assume that last straw of a jab, means that you decided that an 80%
discount is actually below cost.

Can I take my Devils Advocate hat off now?

fpga_toys@yahoo.com wrote:

> We've heard a lot of whining about dropping non-profitable support ...
> how long is a program going to last that ships as many perfect parts as
> very slightly flawed parts?

Conversely, what really happens to the devices not originally allocated
to easypath which have single errors.  Are they crushed and returned to
the sandbox?  Or do they get a second chance at proving their worth, on
the easypath tester?

Without EasyPath any production device with any known defect (that is
not covered by an errata note) goes into the garbage can.
That has been and will remain our policy, and I assume the policy of
any reputable IC manufacturer.

EasyPath allows us to test only the relevant subset of the chip's
functionality (as needed by the specific user).
This increases yield for large devices significantly (hardly any gain
for small chips), and that higher yield means lower cost to us, and
supports a lower selling price. This should be understandable to
anybody with a high-school education.
Peter Alfke

<fpga_toys@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:1142622269.421494.270850@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
> I assume that last straw of a jab, means that you decided that an 80%
> discount is actually below cost.

Hell no. 

>Conversely, what really happens to the devices not originally allocated
>to easypath which have single errors.  Are they crushed and returned to
>the sandbox?  Or do they get a second chance at proving their worth, on
>the easypath tester?

Why does it matter to this discussion?

Xilinx isn't stupid.  They will retest or recycle, whichever is
less expensive (more profitable) overall.

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Hal Murray wrote:
> Xilinx isn't stupid.  They will retest or recycle, whichever is
> less expensive (more profitable) overall.

Stupid isn't the right word. Complacent with their margins is probably
a better descripton. It's why they are only a $1.3B company instead of
$10-40B dollar company like Sun Microsystems or Microsoft which are
similar ages. The founders had some great ideas 21 years ago, and other
than incremental refinement, the real innovation in both the business
plan and technology has been lacking a bit. The high margins and high
costs hinder the growth of their market.

http://www.shareholder.com/visitors/dynamicdoc/document.cfm?CompanyID=SUNW&documentID=1014&PIN=&resizeThree=no&Scale=100&Keyword=type%20keyword%20here&Page=25

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:YsLX3NJSemkJ:www.microsoft.com/msft/download/10K%25202005.doc+microsoft+form+10k+2005&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

My Idea of making Xilinx successful would be to once again aggressively
push the state of the art and grow the company into several related
markets That would bring their revenues into the 20B range inside this
decade.

Reconfigurable computing as a market for Xilinx could have been grown
to something in the $50B range by today, but they got stuck in their
view of their business plan. I believe some new management, a
restructured technology development program, and one could turn Xilinx
around this year, and get it back on track as a $50B company over the
next decade ... or better.

Or any of the A-team FPGA companies, and buy Xilinx at a discount for
pennies on the dollar in 5 years.

Hal Murray wrote:
> Why does it matter to this discussion?
>
> Xilinx isn't stupid.

You are assuming facts that are not in evidence.   ;^)

fpga_toys@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hal Murray wrote:
> 
>>Xilinx isn't stupid.  They will retest or recycle, whichever is
>>less expensive (more profitable) overall.
> 
> 
> Stupid isn't the right word. Complacent with their margins is probably
> a better descripton. It's why they are only a $1.3B company instead of
> $10-40B dollar company like Sun Microsystems or Microsoft which are
> similar ages. 

But in quite different fields, so impossible to compare.

> The founders had some great ideas 21 years ago, and other
> than incremental refinement, the real innovation in both the business
> plan and technology has been lacking a bit.

Maybe Virtex 5 will turn all that around ?

> The high margins and high
> costs hinder the growth of their market.

This makes interesting reading
http://i.cmpnet.com/siliconstrategies/2006/03/isupplitables.gif

and quite a contrast to Austin's original arm waving :)

Seems that yes, Xilinx is the largest Programmable Logic company,
(which is not trivial, so applaud them for that ), but no, their growth 
is BEHIND the Fabless group's average of 10.4%, at a modest 3.7%.
Adding $59M in revenue. [Still, it IS positive :) ]

  Also the Fabless numbers seem to exclude larger companies ASIC flows, 
so the true ASIC market is rather larger again.
( eg IBM Microelectronics has a large chunk of ASIC flow in that 
revenue.... )

  So, design starts in ASIC do seem to be falling, but the revenues seem
to be growing faster than the programmable logic business ?

  Not an easy pill for the spin merchants at Xilinx to digest ? :)

> 
> http://www.shareholder.com/visitors/dynamicdoc/document.cfm?CompanyID=SUNW&documentID=1014&PIN=&resizeThree=no&Scale=100&Keyword=type%20keyword%20here&Page=25
> 
> http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:YsLX3NJSemkJ:www.microsoft.com/msft/download/10K%25202005.doc+microsoft+form+10k+2005&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
> 
> My Idea of making Xilinx successful would be to once again aggressively
> push the state of the art and grow the company into several related
> markets That would bring their revenues into the 20B range inside this
> decade.
> 
> Reconfigurable computing as a market for Xilinx could have been grown
> to something in the $50B range by today, but they got stuck in their
> view of their business plan. I believe some new management, a
> restructured technology development program, and one could turn Xilinx
> around this year, and get it back on track as a $50B company over the
> next decade ... or better.

Why not take them a sound business plan, I'm sure they would listen ?

They could seed this with some easypath FPGAs, and see how quickly
you really can grow the RC sector.....

Programmable Logic has some fundamental limits, that will relegate it
to a niche business. To hit $50B, you are talking about another Intel,
or another Samsung, and that would need truly radical changes.

-jg

Jim Granville wrote:

> > Stupid isn't the right word. Complacent with their margins is probably
> > a better descripton. It's why they are only a $1.3B company instead of
> > $10-40B dollar company like Sun Microsystems or Microsoft which are
> > similar ages.
>
> But in quite different fields, so impossible to compare.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Sun's strength was it's SPARC prococessor line which allowed it to grow
as a high end systems company without being a MS/Intel clone.

Had Xilinx embraced RC as a systems company, it would have leveraged
it's strengths into a high dollar market.  I believe that is still
possible with Xilinx before it's core patents expire. Or inspite of
Xilinx, using an A-Team competitor with an agressive technology plan.

I have several different roadmaps that I've been developing over the
last several years. Today is the right time to start a new tech
industy, as we are just on the back side of a very deep tech slump,
that should progress into a boom cycle.  All the core technologies,
operating systems, processors, FPGAs/CPLDs are mature products that
have been incrementally refined for two decades.

The time is ripe to innovate hard, as we did between 1978 thru 1987,
and in the process use strong vision to take the industry to the next
level.