AMD shows off 90 nano technology

AT AN ANALYST'S CONFERENCE call last night, William Siegle, AMD's chief scientist, showed off some prototypes of 90 nano parts, and claimed the firm is on track to hit the street running when it's launched next year.

"We've been building prototype parts for a couple of quarters and we're going to be in great shape next year".

He also said that memory development, in conjunction with IBM, was well under way. He said the firms were working on a 90nano floating cell, and a MirrorBit array using three levels of copper metallisation for Flash.

Scientists are exploring various avenues for future transistor designs, including metal gates and strained silicon, for the 45 nanometer generation. But 2007/2008 are still a long way away, he said.

Here are some AMD slides we captured from the presentation.

Henri Richard, SVP of AMD's sales and marketing claimed that China is open to more competition and to open source software. AMD flash is being used in seven out of 10 of indigenous cell phone makers, he said. AMD had a deal with Dawning on servers and supercomputers, had signed a distribution agreement with Legend's distributor, Digital China. In India, he said, AMD had established relationships with the country's top four OEMs. "The demand in these markets is understated," he claimed. µ

* IN A Q&A AFTERWARDS, AMD claimed its wireless technology was "every bit as good as its competitors". It's been working with Microsoft to deploy future technologies. AMD claims it's "ahead of the competition", that is to say Intel.