For decades the semiconductor industry followed Moore's Law by roughly doubling the computing power of their chips every two year but now it seems that AMD can no longer keep up with Intel. Hans Mosesmann, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates, believes AMD has falling afoul of Moore's Law and that this will cut their marketshare and revenue:
AMD lags Intel, the No. 1 chipmaker, in chipmaking technology and could be about nine months behind Intel when it introduces chips with elements as small as 45 nanometers in the second half of 2008, analysts said.
Smaller features of chips allow Intel, AMD and other chipmakers to get more computing performance out of a single chip at the same or lower power consumption levels.
AMD's revenue share of the microprocessor market fell 17 percent to $4.3 billion last year while Intel gained 8 percent to $25.9 billion, market research firm iSuppli said. Intel ended 2007 with 79 percent revenue share of the microprocessor market and AMD closed out the year with 13.2 percent.
"They started falling behind at 65 nanometers, and they're trying to make the transition to 45 nanometer," Mosesmann said. "If they can't get 65 nanometer to work, what says they can get 45 nanometer to work?"
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