X-bit labs

AMD Has Started Shipping 90nm Products, Says Report.

Category: CPU

by Anton Shilov

[ 08/12/2004 | 05:06 PM ]

Goldman Sachs, an investment management firm, recently released a report covering the state of a chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices revealing some information following the meeting with the company’s CEO Hector Ruiz.

“AMD began shipment of AMD64 on 90nm [manufacturing process] this week,” says report which text appeared on Investor’s Hub web-site’s forum on Thursday, July, 12, 2004.

According to the recently unveiled roadmap, the Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker plans to release a number of AMD Opteron processors code-named Athens, Troy and Venus, a Mobile Athlon 64 processor known as Oakville and a desktop Athlon 64 processor code-named Winchester produced using 90nm fabrication process in the second half of the year. The initial commercial shipments of AMD64 chips produced at 90nm nodes are officially said to commence in the third quarter of 2004.

“AMD appears to be executing well on its AMD64 roadmap. AMD is one of the few companies on 90nm that does not seem to have had significant delays or defect issue. Revenue shipments of AMD64 notebooks on 90nm started this week, well within the planned schedule for shipments prior to the end of Q3. Desktop AMD64 shipments on 90nm will commence a month later, followed by servers. An on-time transition to 90nm was one of the keys to our thinking in upgrading AMD, as it will allow it to cut prices in line with Intel while aggressively shifting mix to higher margin parts,” notes Goldman Sachs analyst Andrew Root.

In the first half of next year AMD is expected to release the successor of its AMD Athlon 64 FX chip with core code-named San Diego along with a lineup of mobile microprocessors. In the second half of the year the company will release dual-core chips. AMD believes that the current AMD Athlon 64 FX microprocessor made using 130nm technology will be able to scale for at least one speed-bin required to compete successfully with the rival Intel Corp..

According to unofficial sources, AMD’s Athlon 64 FX-57 processor at 2.80GHz made using 90nm Silicon-on-Insulator process technology will be released in Q2 2005. A slightly slower AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 chip at 2.60GHz will be available in Q4 2004.

In the second half of next year AMD will initiate production of dual-core processors for various market segments using 90nm SOI process.

Representatives for Advanced Micro Devices did not comment on the news-story, but said earlier this year the company had started shipments of product samples made using 90nm process technology in Q2 2004 and was on track to begin volume commercial production of such devices in Q3 2004.