Sunnyvale (CA) – A clearly more upbeat AMD was able to report some positive news about its quad-core bug as well as the progress to roll out 45 nm processors.

AMD chief executive officer Hector Ruiz today told analysts that the company has fixed a bug that severely impacted the launch of the company’s Opteron and Phenom quad-core processors. According to Ruiz, the bug has been fixed and the fixed B3 stepping CPU “has left the fab”.

President Dirk Meyer said that the CPU is “running through the paces internally” at this time with engineering samples expected to be shipped to customers within “2 to 3 weeks”. Volume production is scheduled to begin “later in the quarter” and first systems with the fixed processors should become available late in Q1, Meyer said.

Production volume of Barcelona and Phenom quad-core will be about double of the “nearly 400,000 units” that were manufactured during Q4, CFO Bob Rivet noted. On the server side, AMD will focus to get “mid-band power, high volume” quad-core Opterons into the market with higher speeds, 2.5 GHz and above, being scheduled for a Q2 introduction. As previously reported, the higher speed Phenoms will also have to wait: AMD will roll out triple-core Phenoms and 65-watt (low power) quad-core CPUs during Q1. “Higher speeds will follow in Q2”, Meyer stated.

There also was some positive news on the company’s 45 nm progress. Ruiz said that AMD that 45 nm Opterons have been produced and he is “pleased” with the initial result. However, he said that the company is targeting a H2 ramp of the 45 nm generation, which indicates that AMD will miss the originally promised mid-2008 launch of the processors. This statement also contradicts Meyer’s statement from the Q3 2007 earnings call that AMD would begin ramping 45 nm CPUs in H1 2008.

A late 2008 launch of 45 nm processors appears to be more likely now, which means that the 1-year gap to Intel could remain in place and the company will not be able to gain ground on its rival in terms of the production process.

This is classic Rabbit-and-Hare stuff...

Jan 17, 2008 20:31     

I love AMD. I love them because they took a rock and a slingshot and took Goliath down a peg or two. I also am so buried in their stock that no matter what they ever do I'll probably never break even. They could cure BALDNESS and I'll still be perched like an expectent hen on thousands of these bloody AMD shares. But that doesn't matter at all to me now. What does, is that AMD will finally be competing with Intel again. Remember when Intel chips were hot and power-hungry and cost more than one of John Edwards' haircuts? Remember when AMD changed all that by FORCING the Intel behemoth to go on a diet and change its massive corporate mindset. Well kids, happy days are ALMOST here again. And I, for one, am uncorking the champagne...

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I hope you are right Bri

Jan 24, 2008 01:27     

Because without AMD, expect to be paying double, or more than double, what you are paying now for a processor if AMD gets even severely competitively hindered, much less gets out of the CPU market. Needless to say, my PC enthusiast days will be all but gone due to my being unable to afford it.
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