Good as its word, Advanced Micro Devices Inc yesterday announced that it has begun shipments of the first members of its Am486 microprocessor family with 33MHz, 40MHz and clock-doubled 50MHz versions, all of them full clones of the Intel Corp 80486 with maths co-processor on board. The current parts include Intel micrcode, the planned clean room parts will be announced on July 4 – the date is no coincidence. Production ships of the 33MHz and 40MHz parts have begun at $306 for 1,000-up; the Am486DX2-50, set for June, is $417 for 1,000-up. AMD is also sampling a 3.3V 33MHz Am486DXLV with power management for volume in July at the same price as the 5V versions. The Am486 is manufactured in Sunnyvale in 0.7-micron, three-layer metal CMOS process technology; Am386s are made at the Austin, Texas plant.
