AMD Details its Processor Roadmap

In the server and workstation space, AMD will release "Athens," a previously-disclosed 90nm processor for servers with 1 to 8 processors servers. It will fall within its 800 series of products. "Troy" and "Venus" will be updates to the 200 and 100 series, respectively. All three chips will be available in "full" and "low-power" versions, the roadmap document indicated.

Desktop customers can expect three new chips in the second half of 2004: "San Diego," an update to the AthlonFX line, "Winchester," the successor to Newcastle, and "Paris," a new 32-bit Athlon XP.

AMDs Duron value brand will continue to hang around "as the market requires," the roadmap said.

In the mobile space, "Odessa" will provide improvements to the mobile Athlon 64, while "Dublin" will be designed as an upgrade to the 32-bit Athlon XP-M. Save for "Paris" and "Dublin," the 32-bit processors, all of AMDs new chips will be manufactured on the latest 90nm line widths.

"Youre not going to see big-bang announcements in 2004," Meyer said. "Youre going to see us reap the fruits of the harvests we sowed years ago."

Only one chip is currently planned for the first half of 2005: "Oakville," a 90nm refresh of Odessa, likely featuring a similar die shrink to the Athlon64-Newcastle transition.

In the second half of 2005, AMD will revise its processors again, while continuing to use the 90nm process. The roadmap does not indicate whether or not the chips will be a new generation of microprocessors, or simply revisions to the existing architecture.

According to the roadmap, "Egypt" will replace Palermo; "Italy" will replace Troy, and "Denmark" will replace Venus as AMDs enterprise processors.

According to the document, AMD does not plan a refresh of the desktop Athlon 64 "Winchester" part. Instead, that chip will continue through 2005, the roadmap indicates, while the "Toledo" and "Palermo" chips will fill the roles played by the AthlonFX and Athlon XP today.

Likewise, AMDs 2005 mobile processor roadmap calls for the "Oakville" to live on. "Trinidad", a 90nm SOI part designed to replace the 32-bit "Dublin" chip, will be introduced on a 90nm SOI process, the roadmap says.

Although the chip was not disclosed on the roadmap, the next-generation K9 will ship very late in 2005, Meyer said. Analyst Krewell added there is a strong possibility that the die will contain more than one processing core.

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