AMD heeft een press release gepost met meer details over de 'Lightning Data Bus', die gebruikt zal worden voor toekomstige Athlon (en SledgeHammer?) systemen. De maximale bandwidth van de LDT I/O bus is een brute 6,4Gig per sec, 24 keer zo veel als de (64-bit) PCI bus:
AMD's system bus of the future, called Lightning Data Transport (LDT) was also discussed at the forum. LDT provides a data link that is internal to the PC, providing up to 20x increase in bandwidth for I/O, co-processing and multi-processing functions. This increased I/O performance and bandwidth will improve overall system performance for AMD Athlon™ processor-based workstations, servers and personal computers."API plans to offer a two-way chipset and bridge chips during the second half of 2000 that incorporate a LDT interconnect, enabling industry leading I/O bandwidth and performance," stated Gerry Talbot, executive vice president, chief operating officer and chief technical officer, for API. "Pushing the envelope of I/O bandwidth will greatly improve router and web server capabilities, allowing technology to keep pace with the demands of markets like the Internet and telecommunications."
"LDT will compliment HotRail's smart switched fabric SMP core logic for servers based on AMD Athlon processors by providing increased scalability in the server I/O arena," said Rick Shriner, president and chief executive officer, HotRail Inc. "Together HotRail and AMD will drive servers to new levels of performance."
[...] About Lightning Data Transport™
LDT is an internal chip-to-chip interconnect that provides much greater bandwidth for I/O. It can achieve a bandwidth of up to 6.4 GB/sec per connection. Compared to current system interconnects that run up to 266 MB/sec, LDT provides more than a 20x increase in bandwidth. LDT complements externally visible bus standards such as PCI or SIO, and provides a very fast connection to both. LDT is the connection that can provide the bandwidth the new SIO standard needs to communicate with a server.
