There has appeared a lot of new info on the web about AMD’s further plans recently. Although some pieces of information were official and some unofficial, we will try to sum everything up here.
In the first place we would like to point out some changes made to AMD’s plans and concerning the shift to a new 0.13micron manufacturing technology. The roadmap posted at The Inquirer shows that the first CPU for desktop PCs based on 0.13micron Thoroughbred core will come out in Q2 2002. It will work at 1.8GHz (2200+ raiting) and its architecture will be similar to that of Palomino, so that even the bus frequency will remain equal to 266MHz.
Unfortunately, AMD is again falling behind its own schedule revealed before. If at first they were going to launch the first desktop Athlon XP on Thoroughbred core in this quarter, now the announcement has been moved to the next quarter. That is why the eldest processor in a family of performance solutions from AMD in Q1’02 will remain Athlon XP 2000+ built on 0.18micron Palomino core.
At the same time, AMD representatives confirmed at the conference call that they have already started sampling the products made with 0.13micron manufacturing technology, and the first CPUs will appear in this quarter already. That is why it seems quite logical to suppose that Thoroughbred core will first appear in AMD’s mobile CPU family, just like it happened in case of Palomino processors. The thing will happen this quarter already. And as for the desktop PCs, the new core will arrive a bit later here, when the manufacturing process on fab30 will be completely ready.
Later on Athlon XP evolution will go on like that. In Q3 2002 Athlon XP on 0.13micron core will reach the rating of 2600+. In H2 2002 AMD will shift to a new 0.13micron (SOI) Barton core in its eldest processors. We should point out that according to the available info, even the shift to Barton will not push AMD to using faster processor bus, i.e. the processor bus by Barton will also be equal to 266MHz.
In Q4 2002 the first ClawHammer CPUs will crop up. They will be targeted for desktop PCs. The working frequency of the first ClawHammer processors is expected to be around 2GHz, the performance rating – around 3400+ and the production process will be 0.13micron SOI. ClawHammer family is expected oust Athlon XP from the market little by little. Then in early 2003 AMD is planning to introduce ClawHammer and SledgeHammer versions for dual- and multi-processor servers correspondingly.
As for the Duron family, no changes are supposed to be made until Q3 2002. In this quarter we will see a new Duron 1.3GHz (it will probably happen next week), and in Q2 2002 Duron should rise to 1.4GHz.
However, in Q3 the Duron family will get a new faster Appaloosa core made with 0.13micron technology. Together with the introduction of the new core, AMD is planning to increase the processor bus working frequency from 200MHz to 266MHz. and to start using the performance rating system to mark these processors, too. The first Duron with a new marking will be Duron 1800+. It is very important that AMD will use the same rating for both: Athlon XP and Duron CPUs, which will mean that their performance is nearly equal, despite the smaller L2 cache by Duron.
We expect AMD to move to 0.13micron manufacturing technology completely by the end of 2002. However, it looks as if they were going to produce 0.13micron CPUs not only on Fab30. In Q1 2002 AMD should announce their close cooperation with one of the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers (supposedly, UMC), so some processors will be made not on AMD’s production lines.