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AMD "not eating its future"
Confirms Palo uses smaller process
By Mike Magee, 06/11/2001 10:01:10 BST
THERE IS TECHNOLOGY inside the Athlon Palonino that's smaller than .18 micron but that doesn't mean AMD is "eating its future", an insider at the company told us today.
(See Athlon 1900+ close to release).
According to the source, when AMD was introducing its Palomino core, which is now displaying its Thunderbird design, some implementations using technology less than .18 micron were used in the core.
But, we understand, such technology was only used in some parts of the chip to speed up its performance and has little or no relevance to the widespread shrink to .13 micron technology that is currently underway, and on target.
Glenn Hinton, an Intel presenter and a "Fellow", told Andreas Stiller from c't magazine that AMD was "eating its future" at the Microprocessor Forum by using elements of .13 micron technology in the Palomino core.
The AMD insider said that was far from the case, and that while there were elements of the chip that might incorporate smaller process technology, that would not make any difference to the performance gains AMD could expect from silicon on insulation (SOI) technology and the .13 micron shrink.
Hinton's statement implies that Intella engineers go around sawing up AMD chips and closely inspecting their innards.
This is a common practice in the semiconductor industry - and doesn't appear to breach the now strict software rules that prevent "reverse engineering". µ |
