On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 00:10:23 -0700, "Greg Cagle" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:


>
>Bear in mind that one of the motivating factors in HP making the
>IA-64 deal was the prohibitive cost of constructing new fabs for
>the next generation (after PA-8xxx). Having worked with Intel
>quite a bit, I can say that one thing they are undeniably good
>at is building fabs 8^).

Indeed. I've seen projections that future fab plants could run into
the 100's of billions by the time we start producing chips that
utilize the smallest features we can produce or expect to produce with
current lithography techniques. And we might be within even 10 years
of that limit. Let's hope research into optics and molecular and
atomic-level assembly techiniques (self-assembling crystals are cool!)
makes a lot of progress in that time!