Monterey (CA) – At an event held in Monterey today, AMD showed a wafer with “fully functional” 45 nm silicon for the first time.

According to chief technology officer Phil Hester, the 300 mm wafer code-named “Typhoon”, shown in public for the first time today, holds 45 nm dies combining SRAM and logic. The executive said that AMD’s 45 nm process is on track and recent notes from Intel that AMD is facing yield issues “are rubbish” and “wishful thinking on their side”.

The 300 mm wafers with 45 nm structures are expected to ramp in production at the end of 2007. First 45 nm processors are expected to be commercially available by mid of 2007.
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45nm amd x2's with L3 cache and maybe clocking around 3ghz...*drool* oh yah and of course it'll be 65-89watts.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/arc [...] 25comp.htm

Intel demoed something similar over 15 months ago.

I'm pretty sure you meant that the first commercially available processors will appear in mid 2008, not 2007. I'm pretty sceptical, as they are showing us a freaking test vehicle. You know a company is desperate when they're showing test vehicles to the public. This is making me wonder if AMD is afraid that Barcelona will be a flop and they will be struggling to get through the year. If you're an AMD fan, this is not cause for celebration. It is cause for worry.

Didn't AMD compete just fine so far, using a higher nm than intel?
This would mean that AMD is slowly catching up...
Or would that be too optimistic?

So this officially confirms that AMD is about 15 months behind Intel on 45 nm. My estimate has been a range 12 to 18 months

My guess they're rushing 45 nm due to Barcelona not good enough to compete with Intel's 45 nm offerings.

Isn't that a cute lil' thing, then?

I disagree, the reason why they would rush it out is to catch up for better yeilds

Didn't AMD compete just fine so far, using a higher nm than intel?
This would mean that AMD is slowly catching up...
Or would that be too optimistic?

Yes..when their microarchitecture was better implemented. We can't say for certain about their newest architecture, but one is inclined to believe it doesn't compete*

* pure speculation based on lack of data.

I disagree, the reason why they would rush it out is to catch up for better yeilds

better yields = higher gross margin %

looking at their Q1 2007 results, AMD needs all the gross margin help it can get!

I disagree, the reason why they would rush it out is to catch up for better yeilds

I think it's more marketing than anything. Intel is ready to ship 45 nm chips, AMD is desperate. A headline like this looks better than "AMD almost ready to produce 45nm". Just a thought.

Given the AMD typical delays a realistic market entry would be around Q1 2009.

Didn't AMD compete just fine so far, using a higher nm than intel?
This would mean that AMD is slowly catching up...
Or would that be too optimistic?

Not really --- costs wise, Intel has enjoyed the cost advantage significantly, and we see this in the bottom line results of the price war.

Also, you are purporting the same flawed argument seen by most AMD fanatical base -- equating process with performance of an architecture. Performance is based on a combination of both architectural computational efficiency (IPC) as well as clock speed (design + process). Put a crappy architecture (Netburst) on a superior process (Intel's 65 nm) and you will still be strattled with poor IPC.

AMD's current 90 nm is no match for Intel's current 65 nm.... as is their current 65 nm no match for Intel's current 65 nm....

On a node for node basis, Intel's process technology has always exceeded AMD's technology on raw process performance fundamentals... i.e. Vt, Idsat, Idlin, etc.

Jack

Arguably not a match. They do enjoy similarly low power usage, it doesn't clock as high.

But yeah, Intel's process steps are better.

Umm....

If this was a wafer with 45nm "fully functional" die, why didn't they show the actual die in a final package?

I've seen plenty of wafers, and believe me, I can take a picture of a wafer I have in my house, and claim that it's a fully functional whatever.

I guess I just don't see the excitement over showing a wafer with die over an actual product running. Sure, it's 45nm, but again, I can show a wafer and claim the same thing.

I disagree, the reason why they would rush it out is to catch up for better yeilds

better yields = higher gross margin %

looking at their Q1 2007 results, AMD needs all the gross margin help it can get!
BINGO! So them going to 45nm has nothing to do with barcelona's current performance, but rather them being able to keep up in 2007 with intel's gross margins since they can produce cheaper cpus ans yet sell them for what amd will be selling theirs