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J.P. Morgan Tech Conference, May 24th 2006

When's your next gen part? A: "Well, you know GPUs are getting so large and so complex the timing of it is almost one of those things that the timing of it is 'it comes out when it comes out'. . .as much as you try to plan it for a certain event it really is on a schedule that says 'when it's done it's done'. . .now the reason why that works, at least for the high-end. . .the first high-end gpu that comes out. . .is because it is going to get purchased by enthusiasts who really don't care if it is Christmas, the middle of summer, or spring. If it has a discernible advantage over the last gpu, they'll buy it. So our schedule right now on the next generation GeForce [Hmm, that's the first time we've heard them confirm it is still 'GeForce'?] is going to be second half, and the objective is to hit it for 'back to school'. But fundamentally we're really just targeting second half. Which means that the current GeForce 7 family, with the exception of the high-end, is really the family you're going to see in the back to school cycle. [So what I got out of that: if next spin goes well, they hit 'back to school' for a high-end part. If not, it'll be later. And no full family simultaneous launch.] But this one is. . .we kind of describe it inside the company as. . . 'this is probably the biggest architectural change in the company's history from one generation to the next' [Hmm!] I'll give you a little bit of insight. . .this device is going to be over half a billion transistors large. It will, without doubt, be the most complex device being built in the semi-conductor business today. So the current schedule right now is to have it in the second half. And we'll do typical, which is a 'hard launch', which means we'll launch it when it's actually available in retail.

Cutting wafer production? A: 'We manage wafer starts all day long'. Very comfortable with current inventory. We look at quality of inventory more than quantity. Stopped producing GF 6, and inventory of them is very low. Will be moving GF7 high-end inventory down in preparation for "GeForce 8" [Bingo, another public confirmation of name]. MCP sales were somewhat lower, but quality of inventory is very fresh.

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