Van Smith van Tom's Hardware Guide heeft vandaag voor ons een verhaaltje geschreven over de eerste dag van Comdex. De eerste dag staat bij THG in het teken van AMD en derhalve zien we in het artikel informatie over de dode Mustang, de springlevende Palomino, de Hammer familie en over de move naar een 0.13 micron productieproces. Over dit laatste een klein hapje tekst:
The semiconductor sauropod, Intel, has been making a lot of noise lately about its upcoming move to a 0.13 micron copper fabrication process. Sliding down to this finer technology will enable the Santa Clara company to literally shrink its chips, allowing them to run faster while consuming less power.
Again being evasive on specifics, AMD representatives did point to their roadmap as a means to glean when the company will be moving down to their own 0.13 process. Although AMD's Silicon on Insulator (SOI) copper process is arguably more sophisticated than Intel's (which snubs SOI), if AMD's roadmap is a true indicator of when their 0.13 process goes online, then AMD might have problems. The earliest chips using this process, the Thoroughbred and the 64-bit ClawHammer, are not slated to appear until early 2002. This gives the appearance that AMD will be about six months behind Intel in migrating to 0.13 microns.
We pressed our friendly AMD representatives for their opinions as to whether this apparent lag in process technology will be an issue for their company. They replied in unison that, while Intel might "paper launch" 0.13 micron products in late Q2 of 2001, the Santa Clara rival would not likely be reaching quantity production until roughly the same time as AMD, six or seven months later in early 2002.
Een 760MP demo-systeem:
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