French website x86 Secret has some interesting information regarding AMD's move to 90nm from 130nm.
The 130nm Athlon 64 with 512KB of on-die L2 cache, 'Newcastle', has a 150mm 2 die size. Its 90nm equivalent, 'Winchester', is just 83mm 2, the site reveals thanks to a reader who glimpsed an AMD presentation on the subject.
The 939-pin Athlon 64 is expected to be the last 130nm member of that processor family and will be made available with 1MB, 512KB and 256KB of L2, according to AMD's CPU ID codes: F70h, FF0h and FB0h, respectively. The latter is likely to be 'Paris', the crippled 64-bit CPU that AMD will use as the next Athlon XP chip.
A 754-pin version, with the ID F80h, will also be made available, x86 Secret's data suggest.
Expect to see 512KB Athlon 64 FX parts using Socket 939, too. The code is FF0h, the same as the 512KB Athlon 64. The 939-pin 1MB Athlon 64 and 64 FX likewise share the F70h ID. All 939-pin, 1MB and 512KB cache containing chips will sport dual-channel memory controllers, the report claims. Clearly AMD is starting to drive Athlon 64 core up into the FX space rather than bring Opteron chips down.
The Socket 939 parts are expected to be launched on 25 May. AMD is expected to offer two 939-pin Athlon 64s, the Athlon 64 3500+ and the 3800+, clocked at 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz, respectively. A 939-pin version of the Athlon 64 FX-53, which was launch in March, will accompany them. ®
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