Right after the announcement of three new Palomino core based CPUs, AMD issued another press-release, saying that “Later this month AMD is planning to start serial production of Athlon XP CPUs code-named Thoroughbred, made with 0.13 micron technology.”

It is reported also, that due to the switch to a more perfect technological process, AMD will be able to decrease Athlon XP core by 38% (up to 80 mm2). That will profoundly increase the tactual frequency of these processors. A special stress is made on the fact, that Pentium 4 (Northwood) size is 83% bigger than that of Thoroughbred core. This will definitely result in a higher percentage of yield for AMD and a lower Thoroughbred net cost.

It is mentioned as well, that the next Hammer CPUs family, which will be using at first 0.13 micron process with SOI, will come out in the end of this year.

It should be noted, that AMD’s decision not to officially present Thoroughbred at the CeBIT show, looks quite strange, because according to an earlier press-release, the company was going to do it within the next couple of weeks. Evidently, AMD must have its own reasons for this. Anyway, it will be easy to find out pretty soon, if the announcement was true. The only thing that stays unclear is whether Thoroughbred to be released in March, will be in desktop version. Quite possible, that the switch to a new core will start with a mobile processor line, just like it was with Palomino.