AMD Ships 90 Nanometer AMD64 Products

AMD is now producing Mobile Athlon 64 processors with a new 90 nanometer manufacturing process, allowing for high-powered thin and light notebooks.

From AMD’s press release:

AMD announced today that it is achieving a smooth transition to 90 nanometer (nm) manufacturing and has shipped low-power 90nm Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processors for thin and light notebooks (previously codenamed “Oakville”) for revenue. Manufacturers are expected to launch systems based on the new 90nm Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processors in the coming months.

In addition to providing performance and power benefits to AMD64 products today, the transition keeps AMD on track with its plans to deliver 90nm dual-core products mid-next year and also provides operational benefits such as increased production capacities.

“We promised 90 nanometer revenue shipments in the third quarter, and today we’re delivering on that promise,” said Dirk Meyer, executive vice president of the Computation Products Group at AMD. “The added capacity resulting from our efficient transition to 90 nanometer manufacturing enables AMD to better serve the growing ranks of AMD64 customers.”

90nm AMD Athlon 64 processors for desktop systems are expected to ship later this quarter, followed by 90nm AMD Opteron processor shipments later this year. AMD will release further details of all products in conjunction with official product launches.

On Track for Dual Core
In addition to benefiting today’s products, AMD’s success at 90nm better positions the company to deliver dual-core processors mid-next year. Benefits to AMD’s dual-core manufacturing roadmap include:

• 90nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process enhancements provide higher performance, lower power transistors, which can be integrated into new dual-core designs. This will better enable AMD to deliver dual-core processors that meet AMD’s aggressive performance targets.
• 90nm transistors are much smaller and more power efficient than their 130nm predecessors, which allows for greater transistor densities within chips. This will better enable AMD to integrate additional components, including a second core and other improvements, on the same chip without a dramatic increase to chip size.
• AMD’s patented Automated Precision Manufacturing capabilities provide a proven, high-yield 90nm manufacturing capability required for the increased fabrication complexities of dual-core designs.

“AMD’s combined leadership in processor design, submicron technologies and fab automation will allow us to deliver dual core 64-bit processors that meet customer performance and powerrequirements throughout 2005 and beyond,” said Fred Weber, chief technology officer at AMD.

AMD64 processors were designed from the ground-up as multi-core products, and feature technologies such as Direct Connect Architecture that are ideally suited for multi-core implementation. AMD wasthe first to present an x86 dual-core strategy publicly in 1999 and was the first to announce the completion of an x86 dual-core processor design for 64-bit computing in June of this year.

Efficiencies gained from 90nm manufacturing are also expected to result in operational benefits for AMD. For example, reductions in chip sizes resulting from the 90nm transition allow AMD to producemore processors on the same sized wafer, resulting in increased production capacity.