To: Dale Knipschield who wrote (119111 ) 11/24/2000 11:56:03 AM From: Tony Viola Read Replies (2) | Respond to Knip, that guy is as clueless as a decoy in a duck blind. 1999 was yet another annus horribilis for AMD, and they had to push their Athlon -- their last chance -- out the door as quickly as possible. Hence the untimely launch of the Athlon only a few days before X-mas. They were initially planning to go to 0.13 micron around December 2000,... In fact, going to 0.13 micron in december would obstruct the fast ramp of their Athlon, due to the fact that they would have to lock up valuable production capacity in system calibration The huge level 2 cache would then require a huge die size. Besides, the feedback from their OEM partners was that they didn't really want a Mustang, especially since there would be no MP-chipset out to support it. No-one needs a single processor Server chip. So what will happen in 2001? It's going to be very exciting. AMD has clearly made a bold gamble by introducing its 0.13 micron process simultaneously with its SOI technology, Intel is ready to put the PIV out at speeds of up to 2 GHz, but their OEMs are holding them back. Intel doesn't have a dual support for the PIV and there will be a need for completely new infrastructure when the 0.13 micron version arrives in volume production around Q401/Q102. Therefore it misses both the high end market and the performance market.
