Advanced Micro Devices Inc is working with Concord, Massachusetts-based Alpha Processor Inc on the system bus architecture to be used first in its 64-bit Sledgehammer system bus architecture, disclosed earlier this week. The Lightning Data Transport promises a 20 times increase in bandwidth for I/O, co-processing and multi-processing functions compared with standard PCs, at speeds of up to 6.4 Gbps per connection. AMD said a two-way chipset and bridge chips are planned for the second half of 2000
Alpha Processor, owned by Samsung Electronics Co, is expected to offer the technology for use in Alpha-based servers before Sledgehammer emerges. AMD’s K7 Athlon chip already uses the same 200MHz bus as the Alpha 21264. LDT is also expected to be used to link dual Athlon K7s together.
