<font color=red>80 percent of the company's Athlon production in Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany, was at 1 GHz and above, according to William Siegle, senior vice president of technology and AMD's manufacturing operations.
"By any measure, the past year was a good year for AMD in the microprocessor business," Meyer said.
AMD also looks forward to bringing the 64-bit microprocessor generation to the desktop. A previously undisclosed version of AMD's 64-bit Hammer chip, Clawhammer, will begin sampling at the end of 2001 for desktops and server appliances and enter production in the first quarter of 2002. Sledgehammer, a 4- and 8-way capable part for servers, will sample in the first quarter of 2002 and ship a quarter later.
More importantly, AMD executives said the 0.13-micron Clawhammer will be smaller than 100 sq. mm, smaller and arguably cheaper than the company's existing Duron low-end PC microprocessor. The Duron is manufactured on a 0.25-micron process, however, about twice as coarse as the 0.13-micron technology.
The performance of the Hammer generation will also be improved by AMD's move to a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process, which can cut the capacitance of the chip. Through this technique, power can either be cut by 30 percent or performance increased by the same amount,Meyer said. SOI equipment is currently being installed specifically for the Hammer generation, he said.
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