Processor Watch

December 20, 2004

Editor: Tom R. Halfhill

In this issue:

Taiwan’s Roadmap to Leadership in Design
Max Baron - Principal Analyst  {12/20/2004}

Processor Forum Taiwan 2004, In-Stat/MDR’s first international event, opened in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on October 19 to a packed house, predominantly consisting of engineers and students interested in the latest introductions of SoC, CPU, and DSP engines. It may surprise some that the academics of a world-renowned location for semiconductor foundries would spend two days educating themselves on the latest configurations of processors and the integration of SoCs. The audience’s interest in processor topics was fully justified: in his opening keynote, Dr. David Chih-Wei Chang, deputy general director of ITRI’s SoC Technology Center and coauthor of this article, presented the Industrial Technology Research Institute’s (ITRI) views on the present status and future directions of engineering development in Taiwan.

Briefly put, Taiwan, already leading the world in independent foundry services, is in the process of carving for itself a niche in SoC and processor design, aimed at increasing the country’s revenues and offering higher-level competition to countries in the process of entering the fabrication business by employing less-expensive labor.

Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story (4+ pages; 5 graphics) here: www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2004/1220/185101.html. To find out more about Microprocessor Report, please visit: www.mdronline.com.

AMD Revises ’05 Processor Roadmap
Jim McGregor -    {12/20/2004}

AMD has revised its roadmap for 2005. The mobile platform will see two new processors, Roma and Albany, for the Mobile Sempron product line. AMD also plans to introduce Lancaster, a 25W Mobile Athlon 64 in 1Q05, and sub-7W mobile processors in 2006. For the desktop platform, Toledo will be a dual-core Athlon 64 processor for the high end, and San Diego and new processor, Venice, will be positioned as the high-end and mainstream single-core processors. The server roadmap was not revised and continues to focus on dual-core Opterons, beginning in mid-2005.

Other than the sub-7W mobile processors, AMD will not provide any guidance on products for 2006 and beyond. The significant enhancements should, however, include the transition to a 65nm process and support for SSE3 instructions and DDR2 memory across the product lines.

Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story (3 pages; 2 graphics) here: www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2004/1220/185102.html. To find out more about Microprocessor Report, please visit: www.mdronline.com.

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