Yup, I just read the article and I can see what the fuss is about. Basically the author gets all worked up because AMD's chips as they are currently designed cannot effectively run at 3 GHz (or even > 2.4 GHz) without getting exponentially hotter past 1.3V.
I can see his point of argument in being upset with AMD's claim that they have 'cool running' 90nm chips and that they are claiming to have done something that Intel has not, but then he goes on to prove that using IBM's technology (ie strained silicon and spending a year on tweaking the core) they will most likely be able to push the core 20% higher in clockspeed, maybe a bit more.
So, then what is the problem for him??
I would understand his position if AMD was in a perilous situation as of now, or if they were about to get trounced, but AMD is arguably the market leader right now (take out the aptly named Extreme Edition ultra-high transistor count P4's and AMD is inarguably the mainstream leader) and AMD is on course to improve their chips next year. Intel, meanwhile has cancelled the 4 GHz Prescott and essentially called for the end of the line of speed improvements for Prescott, opting instead to go for an additional 1 MB of cache to remain competitive (thereby increasing transistor count by a substantial amount; a sub-optimal solution if I ever saw one).
Basically he's proving that 90nm causes massive leakage at clockspeeds/voltages above a key threshold (right now, it's about 2.5 GHz/1.4V for AMD), but that since AMD runs their chips at a lowerclockspeed than Intel the problems aren't as pronounced. No sh!t!
As Wingznut put it - these companies did not design these chips on a whim - there has been ~5 years of planning behind both Intel and AMD's current technologies, so complaining that AMD 'lucked out' by having a lower clockspeed/higher IPC chip is a moot argument; it wasn't luck, it was design.
His conclusion pt 2 is pretty academic:
onclusions: Part Two
# AMD can't make fast 90nm Hammers now.
# AMD thinks it can make fast 90nm Hammers around six months from now. Then they'll get loud about it.
# IBM's plans are the first semi-solid indication that these plans aren't based on a hope and a prayer.
# There ought to be a sizable jump in maximum performance from AMD chips when this next generation gets introduced.
# If all goes well, it ought to be enough to get the Hammer bandwagon rolling.
# No guarantees, but if you haven't bought a Hammer because of lack of extra bang for your buck, this ought to change your mind.
# For you cheapskates out there, if all goes well, even Semprons ought to be relative powerhouses compared to almost anything out there today.
# At that point, the big shift starts and the bandwagon begins.
It's pretty apparent that AMD can't just crank up the clockspeed another 400 MHz right now; that's why they have only bumped the A64 chips once in the past 6 months or so with the 4000+, while Intel is at 3.8 Ghz (as of recently), and these two chips are relatively competitive (although the AMD is a big winner in games and other benchmarks).
And shifting gears to analyze this from another historical perspective, for different reasons but with a similar outcome, AMD's shift to .13um was the same - they released the Thoroughbred A, it had a lot of leakage and hit a hard wall early (the 2200+ was the highest Tbred A), they optimized the core, added another layer and came out with the Tbred B, which carried the torch a great distance.
Intel, on the other hand, was quite a bit smoother with their .13um chip, steadily marching onward from 1.6 Ghz all the way to a beefy 3.4 Ghz a couple of years later, but has had unprecedented problems with Netburst's clockspeed at 90nm. It's Intel who's in new choppy waters; AMD has hit walls early with die shrinks before.
Finally, the title of the article is grossly misleading:
"A PR Blunder Or Not?"
How could AMD trumpeting they have mastered 90nm, while having the superior technology right now be a PR blunder? A lie? Perhaps. An obfuscation of the truth? Most probably. But how can essentially saying "we're smarter than Intel" and then having superior technology be a PR blunder? It's PR - propaganda! PR doesn't represent the truth, it's just a sales pitch, a way for them to say 'buy our products!'
That's like saying "Microsoft calling Windows XP the best OS in the world" a PR blunder. So what if Linux or another OS is arguably superior? It's a good PR move to say they have the best OS regardless.