Beijing -- Advanced Micro Devices is planning a future version of its Hammer processor family to support DDR-II memory, the JEDEX Conference here was told this week.
Fred Weber, AMD vice president and chief technology officer, told the JEDEC-sponsored IC meeting that a new processor core with on-die memory controller will be developed to support DDR-II. The initial Opteron Hammer chip for servers and the desktop Claw Hammer version have on-die controllers supporting only the present DDR generation.
The AMD executive also clarified confusion on when the first systems using the desktop Hammer processor will come to market. Two weeks ago in an AMD conference call with financial analysts, officials had claimed the initial market push would be on the Opteron server version with systems available in the first half of 2003.
Even so, Weber said some systems with desktop Hammer processors will also come to market in the same time frame.
"But AMD has Barton (the next member of the Athlon XP series) coming up with greater on-die cache and higher performance that will meet the demands of the desktop market for much of 2003," he added.
Weber disclosed that both the desktop and server Hammer processors will have up to 1Mbit of L2 on-die cache. Opteron will support up to 8Gbytes of single channel memory or 16Mbytes dual channel. A special version can support 32Gbytes memory.
AMD hasn't yet disclosed the clock frequency of Hammer. However, Weber described benchmark tests of an Opteron chip that he said showed 2GHz frequency. He said the benchmark results showed Opteron achieved the highest SPECint results of any server processor.
RSS
Digital
HDD roadmap:
The hard disk drive (HDD) industry finds its lifeblood in a technology roadmap. The areal density roadmap describes the number of magnetic bits per unit area on the disk platter--thereby defining the storage capacity.
10 CEOs out in 2009:
It's been a tough year for the global electronics industry and CEOs. We survey the dismissal of 10 industry CEOs during the first three quarters of 2009 and what's ahead for the rest of the year.
Top 10 IC vendors with cash:
The world's biggest IC companies by revenue rank not only among the best in their respective industry segments but are also more likely to have huge piles of cash that can be used to fund acquisitions, R&D and product development
10 companies in trouble (revisited):
What follows is an updated version of 10 companies in trouble. Some companies have been removed since the last version, others remain. Still others have been added to the mix.
MIPS to go after the cellphone?:
ARM dominates the global cell phone market, and many industry observers scoff at MIPS as a viable player in mobile phone designs. But MIPS disclosed that over the next one or two years' time, there will be MIPS-based handsets shipped.
Hot technologies to watch for in 2009:
Every technologist, marketer, industry analyst and reporter on a hunt for the next big thing is bracing for the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show scheduled less than a month away.
Notable women in microelectronics
EE Times has compiled an international list that celebrates women who are business and technology leaders in microelectronics.
EE Times updates Silicon 60
Seventeen companies have been added to the lastest version of our Silicon 60 list of emerging startups. Forty-three companies survived as emerging companies that are still worth watching.
RSS| 
Digital| 
Mobile
