AMD aims for major 65 nm transition by mid-2007

Sunnyvale (CA) - In a briefing with journalists, AMD provided and updated outlook on its future processor and manufacturing plans. The firms 65 nm processors will be introduced in December. The company trails Intel by about 12 months, but AMD believes it will make the jump to a product line that consists mainly of 65 nm CPUs within half a year.

The presentation indicated that a major transition to 65 nm will be occurring during the first and second quarter of next year. No specific processor models have been announced, but industry sources told TG Daily that AMD will be making four 65 nm processors available for vendor order on December 5 of this year: The first processors using the 65 nm "Brisbane" core will be the Athlon 64 X2 versions 4000+, 4400+, 4800+ and 5000+.

AMDs vision of the graphics processor in computer platforms

This integration opens up a whole range of new application models - and not necessarily only graphics focused scenarios. While AMD envisions general purpose platforms of Fusion for lower-end and mainstream PCS, Fusion can also use the floating point performance of the GPU to expand into data centric and media centric applications as well as high-end graphics when using multiple GPU cores. More details about Fusion are expected to be unveiled during an analyst event in December.

A first impression of the direction AMD is taking with the graphics processor was given with the introduction of the firm's first "stream processor". Basically a slightly modified Radeon graphics card with R580 processor, the technology looks like a regular graphics card, but integrates 1 GB of memory and is targeted to speed up applications in CAD and CAE, financial analytics, oil and gas exploration, as well as scientific programs such as molecular modeling, math libraries and gene sequencing.

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