As I remember, in the end of last year, Mr. Hector Ruiz (AMD Executive Director) mentioned that the company was planning to release a chip one day, which will comprise two computing cores in a single package.

So, the company hasn’t yet changed its mind. It’s true that some far away plans still include the intention to develop a chip containing two computing cores of the 64bit SledgeHammer CPU and a 1MB L2 cache. The entire thing will be made with 0.09micron manufacturing technology some time in H2 2003 and will be recognized by the OS as two independent CPUs supporting SMP. The die size of the new processor is expected to be 95sq.mm, which is only 15sq.mm bigger (this is preliminary info) than by Pentium 4 (Prescott).

As we see, AMD and Intel have different approaches to multi-processor solutions: if Intel is trying to set up virtual multi-processor configurations in a single chip, then AMD is working on a real one. Both approaches have their highs and lows, of course. For example, to support dual-processor solution from AMD an OS supporting two CPUs is required (for instance, Windows XP Professional), while for the case of Pentium 4 (Prescott) Windows XP Home Edition is more than enough.