Intel Talking in the Dark

Meanwhile, Wall Street is fretting over a possible surplus of capacity (for other types of manufacturing) developing in 2006.

AMD has made significant inroads into Intel's market share over the years, but the smaller company is far from an equal player. In September, for instance, AMD was the dominant supplier of chips used in PCs sold via the retail channel for four weeks in a row.

Overall, though, Intel's share of the processor market was 82.2% in the second quarter, while AMD's share was just 16.2%, according to Mercury Research, an Arizona-based semiconductor market research firm.

There's likely to be talk on the earnings call about the market for flash memory, but because flash tends to represent only about 5% of Intel's revenue, it's far less important than discussion of PC demand as well as Intel's progress in readying new products for 2006 and margins.

"We believe Intel is poised to regain product momentum, and execution appears to have improved," wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Ben Lynch, who calls the company "a compelling value" at current prices, and says the fourth quarter is likely to be the bottom of the company's competitive slump. Deutsch Bank does not have an investment banking relationship with Intel.

CFO Andy Bryant said during a September conference call that the quarter is proceeding as expected overall, with continued healthy growth in the PC market, especially for notebooks.

"There is no real surprise in the revenue line," he said.

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