32nm CPUs next year from AMD

Although Advanced Micro Devices was previously expected to get ready to produce central processing units under the 32-nanometer process technology only in 2011, it seems that the chip maker plans to speed things up a little. Dirk Meyer, chief executive of AMD, stated recently that the company was set to “ramp up” production in the middle of next year, and that it expected volume production to start in the fourth quarter of the year.

Currently, the CPUs shipped by both AMD and Intel are fabricated using the 45nm process. The Sunnyvale company has managed to come to the market with processors manufactured under the 45nm process only in the fourth quarter of last year, but it seems that it expects to be able to move to the next-generation 32nm fabrication by mid 2010.

Unlike the previous generation of chips made by AMD, the 32nm CPUs will only be designed by the company, The Foundry Company being the one that will take on the manufacturing process. It seemsthat the spinoff of its facilities into a new entity helped the chip maker keep on track with rolling out new-generation processors only about a year behind archrival Intel.

According to Meyer, AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Co., formed by the Abu Dhabi government, will close today the deal regarding the spinoff of the chip maker's manufacturing operations into a joint company. This move is expected to help AMD put an end to an entire line of quarterly loses.


Meyer says that the chip maker expects the Foundry Co to provide it with the necessary resources, mainly due to the fact that AMD will own 34 percent of the newly formed joint venture. At the same time, he seems to believe that the spinoff was a great move for AMD. “We've been actually impressed to see the quality and depth of the relationship a fabless company can have with its partners,” Meyer said.

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2.93 GHz Intel Core i7 tested

Intel Core i7 tested


You may have to wait one more month in order to be able to buy a Core i7 processor but when it comes to knowing the performance of Intel's upcoming 45nm parts, the wait if over. From PCOnline we now have a rather in-detail article focused on the performance of Intel's Core i7 940. Coming at 2.93 GHz, the i7 940 will be the highest clocked non-Extreme Nehalem CPU available upon launch day and it will feature things like 8MB of shared L3 cache and a triple-channel DDR3 memory controller.

Going against a Core 2 Extreme QX9770 both at both 3.2 GHz and 2.93 GHz, the Core i7 940 proves faster than its predecessor in Super PI, CINEBENCH R10, WinRAR, 3DMark Vantage and World in Conflict but not in Call of Duty 4, Half-Life 2: Episode Two of Company of Heroes.



To see the Core i7 940's

Summary: In multi-threaded test, simultaneous multi-threaded SMT Open Core i7's performance has improved significantly in software testing, only TMPGEnc and SMT have compatibility problems, decreased performance, I believe that through subsequent version will resolve this

2.93 GHz Intel Core i7 tested