I just got off the phone with AMD spokesperson Susy Pruitt, who said that the chip pricing cuts are business as normal: the two factors driving price down, she said, were the emergence of formerly high-end dual-core chips in the mainstream market and the transition from a 90nm to 65nm fabrication process.
Asked if Edwin Mok's claims of "frantic price cuts," were those of an analyst shooting from the hip, Pruitt offered a noncomittal "Maybe."
"I don't know where he got that from," Pruitt said. "We're having some of out investor relations people follow up with him on that. We're not sure where he got that from."
To AMD, last monday's price cut simply reflects the march of progress.
"When we first announced Athlon Dual Core 2 Pro, the audience then was enthusiasts, those users who were extreme multitaskers and digital media users," Pruitt said. "We are starting to see a growing demand for dual core processors in the mainstream market."
The move from a 90nm process to a 65nm process also results in prices heading south.
"Basically, when you're producing 65nm chips, you're able to put more chips on one wafer, so you're output is more that it would be ... output is more, so we can intelligently scale capacity."
