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by Anton Shilov
11/08/2002 | 11:07 AM
The market of semiconductors in general suffer from lowering demand these days and so does Advanced Micro Devices, who have been reporting losses for five consecutive quarters and who is sometimes unable to launch new products on time. As we know, this quarter AMD reported several adjustments in their plans for the future, though, without changing the main roadmap; today the company officially reflected all the changes in their new official roadmap.
As we reported some time ago, AMD will launch both its ClawHammer and SledgeHammer (Opteron) processors in the first quarter next year. The Sunnyvale, California-based developer plans to push only the latter CPUs heavily to the server market since they think it will boost the company’s revenue and profit more substantially as if they start to sell the desktop intended ClawHammer chips.
Apparently, the Barton based Athlon XP processors with enhanced L2 cache for desktop and mobile computers will appear a bit earlier than the MP processor for dual-processor servers. According to the graph, the first Barton processors may appear by the end of this year, though, it is quite unlikely. The Athlon MP processors with 512KB L2 cache will make their appearance later in the first quarter 2003. Mobile x86-64 processors will see the light of the day sometimes towards the second half of next year. What is important, they still will be made using the 0.13 micron technology, since AMD will postpone the implementation of 90 nanometer manufacturing process. Apparently, the Sunnyvale-based semiconductor company will only start to utilise its 90 nanometer technology in the first half of 2004.
It is interesting, but the new processors that will be made according to 90 nanometer process, are code-named in a rather unusual way for AMD. As we know, the company usually called their Athlon processors with the names that were somehow connected with horses, e.g. Palomino, Mustang, Thoroughbred and so on. From the 90 nanometer point they will start to use geography related code-names for their chips. As we see from the picture above, the horses are to gallop away and there will be Athens, San Diego and Odessa microprocessors for servers (1-8 way), desktop and mobile computers respectively. These CPUs will only appear in 2004, while the arch-rival Intel will start to make its Pentium 4 “Prescott” processors with 90 nanometer technology already in the second half of 2003.
I want to remind you about the aggressive policy Intel will follow with the transition to the more advanced manufacturing processes in the future. By the end of the second quarter 2003, 90 nanometer products will represent 5% of all processors made by Intel. By the end of the third quarter next year, the figure will achieve 20% of all CPU chips from the largest semiconductor manufacturer and by the end of the year, the company will make 40% of the processors using this technology. The trend to implement the newest processes as fast as possible will also continue in 2004. By the end of the first half, the company will make 90% of their CPUs using 90 nanometer technology. After that, the company will immediately start to make the transition on the 65 nanometer process
On the very recent press-conference, the CEO of AMD, Mr. Hector Ruiz confirmed that he expects a sales increase of 20% or more in the fourth quarter of 2002, compared to the third quarter ended September 29, 2002.
Please keep in mind that AMD’s roadmap is subject to change without notice, according to AMD.