AMD Confirms 90-nm Shipments, Juggles Processors

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has confirmed reports that appeared on last week that it has begun shipping for revenue microprocessor ICs made using 90-nm manufacturing processes.

The company said Tuesday (Aug. 17) that it has shipped a Mobile Athlon 64 processor previously codenamed "Oakville" for use in thin and light notebooks. AMD has therefore opted to ship a Mobile Athlon 64 processor instead of the high-end notebook chip code-named "Odessa". Odessa was previously expected to be AMD's first 90-nm chip, followed by San Diego and Winchester for desktops, but AMD decided to bring Odessa forward into 130-nanometer manufacturing and announced this in May.

AMD said the transition to 90-nm manufacturing keeps AMD on track to deliver 90-nm dual-core products in the middle of 2005. Athlon 64 processors for desktop systems made using the 90-nm silicon-on-insulator process are expected to ship later this quarter, followed by 90-nm AMD Opteron processor shipments later this year, AMD said.

The move to 90-nm revenue shipment was expected since AMD said it had started manufacturing on its 90-nm manufacturing process on April 19 and that it planned to start shipping 90-nm products to customers in the third quarter of 2004.

"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, in a statement.Competitor Intel Corp. has currently been plagued with delivery delays for several new products.