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AMD Announces Components for High-End PCs

On the drawing board: a chipset, a bus architecture, and an add-in card design.

By Terho Uimonen, IDG News   

Poised to make a name for itself as a technology leader, AMD is readying several products and offering its support for technologies designed for use in high-end PCs, servers and workstations for the corporate and enterprise market, Lee said.

Later this year, the company is scheduled to ship the AMD-760 chip set, which supports the emerging double data rate SDRAM standard for memory applications. Soon thereafter, a follow-up version called AMD-760MP will offer support for up to two of the company's high-end Athlon processors in servers and workstations, he added.

In related news, Taiwan-based chip set and processor vendor Via Technologies, the hosts of the two-day event that will close its doors here Thursday, officially launched on Wednesday its first chip sets with DDR support for PCs powered by both AMD's and Intel's processors.

According to Lee, AMD is also working on the Lightning Data Transport system bus architecture that will be introduced in early 2001. Aimed at high-end systems, LDT may offer support for up to eight-way processor configurations, a slide Lee showed during his presentation suggested.

In a thinly veiled dig at rival Intel, Lee noted that AMD has been able to ship its fastest 1.1GHz Athlon in volume, "while our competitor obviously has problems."

Intel recently was forced to halt shipments of a 1.13-GHz version of the Pentium III processor due to a technical glitch that under certain circumstances could freeze systems powered by the speedy chip.

Taking another potshot at Intel, Lee also said that AMD's forthcoming x86-64 processors aimed at high-end business systems will deliver the advantages of 64-bit computing while maintaining compatibility with existing 32-bit software.

"And unlike our competitor, our [design] doesn't force customers to choose one instruction set over another," Lee said, referring to Intel's IA-64 architecture.

AMD's approach will consist of an evolutionary migration to 64-bit computing that will allow the industry to leverage the "billions and billions of dollars" already invested in x86 software, he added. "We want to be seen as the leader in technology," Lee said. "(But) we can't do it all ourselves so we need partners," Lee said.

Consequently, AMD is supporting several industry efforts aimed at creating open standards that will further the PC platform, he added.

In addition to DDR SDRAM, another "key technology development" AMD is backing is the Advanced Communications Riser Special Interest Group that is developing a common architecture for networking and communications riser cards.

The ACR specification aims to provide a common architecture for a broad range of communications and networking functions, including analog modem, Ethernet, phone line (also known as HomePNA) and wireless networking, as well as digital subscriber line. It will vie for the hearts and minds of computer makers in competition with Intel's Communication and Networking Riser specification.