800MHz Athlon storms CES
By John G. Spooner, ZDNet
Jan 05, 2000

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Thursday will crank up the juice on its Athlon processor.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company, as expected, will introduce an 800MHz version of its Athlon processor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The chip will be AMD's fastest Athlon, replacing the 750MHz Athlon, which was released in November.

The chip will be available immediately in PCs from manufacturers including Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ) and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM).

Compaq, for example, will offer the 800MHz Athlon in its Presario 5900Z PC line. The PC, configured with the 800MHz chip, 128MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive and a 17-inch monitor, will cost $2,550, according to Compaq's Web site. The company has already begun taking orders on the Presario 5900Z-800.

The newest Athlon, like its 750MHz predecessor, is based on AMD's 0.18 micron manufacturing process and is produced in the company's Austin, Texas, Fab 25 manufacturing plant.

850MHz Athlon on the horizon
For users, the newer, 0.18 micron process is most important because it has improved the processor's clock speed performance potential. At the same time, this will help AMD increase the performance of the Athlon as it competes with rival Intel Corp. for the top-performing processor.

The 0.18 micron process also reduces power consumption and operating temperature, as compared to 0.25 chips. And though AMD has not done this yet, the move also allows for the integration of chip Level 2 cache, another performance-enhancing chip design maneuver

Intel surprised the industry by introducing its 800MHz Pentium III in limited quantities on Dec. 20.

AMD, sources said, will continue to push the performance envelope with Athlon and will likely ship an 850MHz version of the chip in the next few months.

Also at CES, the company will demonstrate two Athlon chips, running at 900MHz at room temperature. One such chip will be similar to the current 800MHz chip.

The other will utilize copper interconnect technology. Later this year, copper interconnects will take the place of the aluminum interconnects now used in Athlon chips.

Interconnects are tiny pieces of wire that connect transistors inside a chip. The switch will allow for additional performance increases, according to the company.

Pricing for the new 800MHz Athlon chip wasn't immediately available.

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