Advanced Micro Devices on Monday formally introduced its much-anticipated quad-core AMD Opteron central processing units (CPUs) earlier code-named Barcelona. The new chips feature the industry’s first single-die quad-core design and, according to AMD, enhanced performance. AMD hopes that sales of the new server offerings will boost its quarter revenue and may even turn the chipmaker into profit.

“Today marks one of the great milestones in microprocessor achievement as AMD again raises expectations for industry-standard computing. We’ve worked closely with our customers and partners to design a new generation of processing solutions embodied by today’s quad-core AMD Opteron processor – a four-way winner in performance, energy efficiency, virtualization and investment protection. Early customer response has been extremely positive,” said Hector Ruiz, chairman and chief executive officer, AMD.

The family of AMD’s quad-core AMD Opteron processors was delayed by many months and even now it is not complete: on Monday AMD formally unveiled only standard performance and energy efficient quad-core products, whereas high-performance chips will be available only in the fourth quarter of the year.

Quad-core AMD Opteron processors are based on the company’s next-generation micro-architecture and are produced using 65nm silicon-on-insulator process technology. The new chips feature 128KB L1 cache (64KB data and 64KB instructions), 512KB L2 cache per core as well as shared 2MB L3 cache. The quad-core AMD Opteron 2300-series and 8300-series processors sport advanced power management technologies, such as Independent Dynamic Core Technology (IDCT) that allows each core to vary its clock frequency depending on the specific performance requirement of the applications it is supporting, Dual Dynamic Power Management (DDPM) that provides an independent power supply to the cores and to the memory controller, allowing the cores and memory controllers to operate on different voltages, determined by usage. Among the highlights of AMD’s new chips the chipmaker also names 128-bit floating point units (FPU), SSE4A instructions, new dual-channel DDR2 memory and other innovations.

The new server and workstations processors from AMD are drop-in compatible with LGA1207 platforms, however, not all platforms support features like IDCT or DDPM at the moment.

Systems based on quad-core AMD Opteron processors will be available from tier-one server makers, such as Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems. Machines based on quad-core AMD Opteron processors are also being announced today by a host of other manufacturers, including Appro, Egenera, Gateway, Rackable Systems, Supermicro and Verari.

AMD Opteron processors with four processing engines and 68W or 95W thermal envelopes are currently available for dual-processor and multi-processor servers. AMD Opteron 2300-series cost from $209 to $389 in 1000-unit quantities, whereas AMD Opteron 8300-series are priced from $698 to $1019 in 1000-unit quantities.