AMD quad cores: the whole story unfolded

THERE HAS BEEN a lot of conflicting info coming out about AMD, quad cores and its 65 nanometre process. To clear this all up, I dug up the info the old fashioned way, I asked AMD. So, directly from the horse's mouth, here is the info on all the hot AMD topics.

The QC parts are rumoured to be coming in Q2/07, Q4/07 and Q1/08, and are said to be both the old and the new cores. Some people call the Q2 part K8L, others call the Q4/Q1 parts the same, but since AMD has no product called K8L, that is kind of speculative.

So, which story is right, and what timetable is it on? The short version is that all QC parts are the new core, Rev H, any stories to the contrary, including mine, are wrong. That said, the timelines, all three of them, are correct. There are two new cores coming from AMD, and three times for introductions.

The first one, set for Q2/07 is code named Barcelona, and it is a Rev H cored quad capable part with HT2.0. It will come in all power levels, including 68W and the SE 120W, but mainstream parts should be 95W. Barcelona cores will fit into existing infrastructure with no modifications necessary providing the boards and chipsets meet all the current specs.

So, what about Q4/07 and Q1/08? Well, that is the interesting part, it is the other new core for the year. The Q4/07 part is called Budapest, and it is the Barcelona core with HT3.0 in 12xx Opteron and A64 guise. The core should be done well within the alloted time frames, but its introduction may be delayed due chipset availability. Basically, this is the first major update to HT, and people may miss windows.

The next major part is called Shanghai, it is simply the 22xx and 82xx version of Budapest. It is being delayed to Q1/08, possibly Q2 because of the aforementioned chipset availability and likely increased validation needs. Lets just say you should see Shanghai in 1H/08.

So, two cores, three introductions, and a lot of conflicting info. That also sums up the stuff swirling about 65 nanometre production. Let's be clear about this, full flow this month means just that, the fabs are flowing fully, this does not mean the wafers are coming out of the fabs yet. It takes about 12 weeks from the time a wafer goes in to the fab to the time it comes out with pretty pictures drawn on it.

This means if they turned the tap on in early September as Tony wrote, you won't be seeing chips with smaller pretty pictures drawn on them until late in Q4. If the timing was exact, you can expect them in early December, which fits in exactly with what AMD has been saying all along.

So, the summary for the short attention span set, two new cores with three introductions. On top of that, you have 65nm coming in month s, not a month. All clear now? Put the magic 8-balls away and go outside for a change. µ