Ian F. writes:
You're talking about silicon fab lines here, Tim. As far as I am aware, Cray has never fab it's own chips. Indeed, most of their boards which I have seen (I, II, Y-MP/8 and Y-MP/EL) have used chips sourced from fairly well- known vendors, such as VLSI Technologies.
In my last post, I forgot to mention that Cray Computer Company actually *did* and *does* fabricate its own chips! They committed to GaAs from a supplier and then bought the supplier when it faltered. My recollection is that it was Gigabit Logic, but it _might_ have been the "other" GaAs supplier, whose name escapes me this minute. I'm not claiming this as the proximate cause of Crayco's current problems. But I do think committing to GaAs *was* a factor, and this relates to the levels of integration in CMOS and BiCMOS versus the levels currently obtainable in GaAs. A huge fraction of Crayco's spending went into the advanced robotic wirebonding and packaging of thousands of GaAs chips. IBM spent vast fortunes on its advanced packaging/cooling systems, while Intel and other chip companies concentrated on CMOS VLSI, with much lower overall packaging and cooling costs for the same performance. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."