<font color=blue>AMD's Athlon 4 edging toward 1.6GHz
Microprocessor launch kick-starts transition toward higher clock speeds
By Jack Robertson
EBN
(05/18/01, 04:04:32 PM EST)
The release last week of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Athlon 4 microprocessor for notebook PCs sets in motion a roadmap that should take the chip to a 1.6GHz clock speed late this year.
The processor, which had been code-named Palomino, is viewed by AMD as the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's best chance yet to make inroads into the laptop space long dominated by Intel Corp. The latest AMD roadmap shows Athlon 4 moving up in the third quarter to speeds ranging from 1.3 to 1.5GHz, and to 1.6GHz in the fourth quarter. The device is expected to achieve a 1.7GHz speed early in 2002, according to AMD.
Also in the third quarter, AMD plans to introduce the first Athlon 4 chips for the desktop PC market, tracking along the same clock speed roadmap as the mobile processors through the end of the year.
AMD's move bucks a well-established trend in which mainstream PC processors are released for the desktop first and only later migrate to notebook applications. The Athlon 4 has power management circuitry, known as PowerNow, to control die temperature in mobile systems. In comparison, Intel's Pentium 4-though also equipped with a power management feature-is not expected to begin appearing in notebook PCs until early next year.
Meanwhile, Via Technologies Inc., Taipei, Taiwan, last week unveiled a double-data-rate SDRAM-enabled chipset to support the Athlon 4. Nvidia Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., is expected shortly to announce a high-performance chipset with a 128-bit bus supporting 4.2Gbyte data rates for the Athlon 4, the highest for any PC. In addition, AMD has its own 760 core logic controller for the new Athlon.
The AMD roadmap indicates that the first Athlon to be built using a 0.13-micron design rule is slated to be introduced in the first quarter of 2002. As previously reported, AMD at midyear will unveil a 0.13-micron version, code-named Barton, using its new silicon-on-insulator process.
The company last week also introduced its value-end Duron processor to the mobile market, using the PowerNow management feature. The new mobile Durons operate at 850 and 800MHz. While the mobile Athlon 4 chips with copper interconnects are made at AMD's fab in Dresden, Germany, the mobile Duron processors with aluminum interconnects are manufactured at AMD's Austin, Texas, plant.
AMD projects that Duron frequencies will migrate to 1GHz in the third quarter and then 1.26GHz in the first quarter of 2002. A new Duron with a core code-named Appaloosa will debut in the second quarter of next year using a 0.13-micron design rule.
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