EE Times Under The Hood - October 8, 2007 - (Page 54) under the hood: SEMICONDUCTORS www.eetimes.com • www.techonline.com Native quad core finally hits x86 market BY JOHN BOYD A dvanced Micro Devices, apparently timing the announcement to coincide with a quiet period for rival Intel, on Sept. 10 unveiled a single-chip quad-core processor. The “native” device, code-named Barcelona, is AMD’s first quad-core microprocessor and was architected to migrate the K8 core architecture into a product that would compete with, and outperform, Intel’s new Core architecture, used in the Core 2 Duo processor line. and a dual-channel 128-bit DDR2/DDR3 interface. The design contains more than 460 million transistors, about 120 million less than Intel’s quad-core, which itself comprises two dualcore chips in a single package and is code-named Clovertown. The AMD chip is fabricated in a 65-nanometer VIDEO For insight into the process by which Semiconductor Insights’ engineers tear down an IC—from the decapping process to the analysis of a circuit or process used— see the online version of this article at www.techonline.com/underthehood.Also, view the related OnDemand seminar for added insight into Barcelona’s process technology and architecture. The next-generation Opteron processor integrates four enhancedperformance x86 cores, each with 512-Kbyte L2 cache and an enhanced 128-bit floating-point unit. The cores are integrated with a shared 2-Mbyte L3 cache and an improved on-chip memory controller that supports up to four 16-bit HyperTransport links silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS process with dual stress liners and embedded SiGe for pMOS source/drains. The design uses 11 layers of copper interconnect and advanced low-k dielectrics that tie 54 Electronic Engineering Times, TechOnline | October 8, 2007 http://www.eetimes.com http://www.techonline.com http://www.techonline.com/product/underthehood/202103647
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