AMD's Opteron processor line has been expected for months--if not years. Since 2000, the company has been slowly revealing details about its codenamed Hammer family of 64-bit processors. The high-end Opteron chip, codenamed SledgeHammer, is an 86-based processor that runs both 32- and 64-bit instructions in native mode.

The company is also working on a desktop version, codenamed ClawHammer--which has been delayed several times and will not be introduced until September of this year.

Meanwhile, based on its 0.13-micron, copper-based process technology, the Opteron will be offered in three basic lines, including the one-way 100 series, two-way 200 series, and four- to eighth-way 800 series. Each "series" will be offered in three speed grades: 1.4-, 1.6-, and 1.8-GHz.

The product is targeted for higher-end, 32/64-bit computing applications, such as servers and even supercomputers, said John Crank, senior brand manager for Sunnyvale-based AMD. "The Opteron is targeted for the enterprise market," Crank said in interview with SBN.

"It's a true 64-bit native core" that supports 32-bit processing, he said. "It's 100 percent compatible with x86 instructions."

While there were no real surprises regarding the Opteron launch, analysts believe the chip could give archrival Intel a run for its money at the high-end of the processor market.

"I'm impressed with the Opteron" declared Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with Insight64, a market research firm in Saratoga, Calif. "The performance is clearly better than a Xeon. The Opteron offers Itanium-like performance at Xeon prices," Brookwood said.

The microprocessor analyst was referring to Intel's 32- and 64-bit processor lines, dubbed the Xeon and Itanium, respectively. Both the Xeon and Itanium are geared for high-end computing applications. Other chip makers and OEMs also develop high-end processors for servers, including IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.

AMD appears to have hit a home run with the Opteron, but the company faces several challenges, most notably competition from Intel and finding a tier-one server vendor to adopt the chip for large corporate accounts, Brookwood said.

Today, there are only three tier-one server vendors in the market--Dell Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., and IBM Corp., which, in total, control 70 percent of that sector, he said. "There are not a lot of tier one server vendors left," he said. "After that, it falls off."

A much bigger problem for AMD is that "Fortune 500" accounts tend to be conservative and procure servers based on chips from Intel. AMD is strong in the processor market for consumer-oriented PCs, but the company is lagging in the corporate world. "The 'Fortune 500' guys like to buy from companies they know and trust," Brookwood said.

Still, AMD has a fighting chance to succeed in a growing market. In total, the worldwide server chip market is expected to grow from 9 million units in 2002, to 12 million in 2006, according to Brookwood.

The Opteron is a device that consists of several main components: a 64-bit core, 64-KB of Level 1 instruction cache, 64-KB of Level 1 data cache, 1-MB of Level 2 cache, a double-data-rate (DDR) memory controller, and a HyperTransport unit.

The Level 1 cache is a two-way, set-associative unit, while the Level 2 cache boasts a 16-way architecture. The memory controller supports DDR-133, DDR-200, and DDR-266 SDRAMs. And the HyperTransport unit supports up to three links or paths to the I/O, for an aggregate bandwidth of 19.2-gigabits-per-second.

Prices for the processors depend upon the configuration. The two-way 240, which is a 1.4-GHz part, sells for $283. The 242, a 1.6-GHz chip, is $690. And the 244, a 1.8-GHz part, is $794. The 200 series is shipping, while the 100 and 800 lines will be available in the second quarter.