AMD “Barcelona” Launch May Be Delayed – Report

by Anton Shilov
05/17/2007 | 10:28 PM

The highly-anticipated launch of AMD’s new server processors code-named Barcelona is still not put into schedule, according to a media report citing AMD’s partners among server manufacturers. Apparently, the launch could be pushed to late third quarter, which will mean lower sales for the new Opteron chip.

A news-story at DigiTimes web-site suggests that AMD’s original plans to introduce quad-core AMD Opteron chips are unlikely to be on schedule with a concrete launch-time still unknown. Originally it was anticipated that AMD will release its new microprocessors in June, however now it is said that “AMD has informed them that the introduction of Barcelona will be delayed until August or September. It said that this schedule is still subject to change and the launch may be delayed again.

The new AMD Opteron processors code-named Barcelona are based on the company’s next-generation micro-architecture and will be produced using 65nm process technology. Among the highlights of AMD’s new chips the manufacturer lists shared L3 cache, 128-bit floating point units (FPU), Hyper-Transport 3.0 bus, support for dual-channel DDR2 memory and other innovations.

AMD did not comment on the news-story, however, Patrick Patla, director, server/workstation division at AMD said in an interview with the web-site that the new chips will be released in the middle of 2007.

“We were the first with x86-64 and Direct Connect Architecture. First with dual-core. And we’ll be the first with native quad-core during mid-this year with the launch of Barcelona,” Mr. Patla is reported to have said.