AMD rolls out 90nm Opterons from its Dresden fab

By Steve Malone

Posted on 21 Apr 2004 at 11:58

AMD is reported to have started rolling sample quantities 90nm versions of its Opteron processors from its Fab30 factory in Dresden. The company says it plans to start shipping processors to OEMs in the third quarter of this year.

The company is reported to be using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) manufacturing process as well as Applied Material's Black Diamond low-k technology. The Black Diamond technology lowers the capacitance (the 'k') in layers underneath transistors on a chip. Lowering the capacitance reduces cross-talk between the copper interconnects, permitting signals to travel faster on them.

AMD is also said to be planning to move to a strained silicon process soon. A strained silicon process is where the silicon lattice is stretched to allow electrons to move more freely through the material. By stretching and compressing silicon, Intel claims it improved electron conduction by around 10 per cent for its 90nm Pentium ranges, a figure that AMD would love to match.

Moving to a 90nm process will produce chips 40 per cent smaller than the existing 130nm manufacture.
No formal announcement has been made as to which chips are likely to be produced on the 90nm process but the likelihood is that it will be AMD 64-bit ranges of Opterons and Athlons. This will include the upcoming 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-55 and the 2.4GHz AMD Athlon 64 3800+.