Advanced Microdevices Inc’s state of the art fabrication plant in Dresden, Germany will start producing chips next week and is expected to roll out 1GHz Athlon chips in the first quarter of next year. AMD has invested 3.4bn DM ($1.89bn) in Fab 30; the first non-US plant that uses Copper interconnect technology.
The plant will start producing copper 550MHZ, 600MHz and 700MHz Athlons after it is officially opened next Wednesday. AMD first produced copper K6-III chips at Dresden in July this year (CI No 3,702). The first Athlons from the plant will be built on a 0.18 micron process. The plant currently has a staff of 950 and AMD intends to double that over the next two years.
AMD still has to repay development loans it spent on building the plant to the German government. If AMD has spare capacity at the plant – which is very likely – it has said in the past that it may partner with Motorola Inc to offset some of its costs. Motorola has struggled to meet Apple Computer Inc’s demand for its G4 PowerPC chips recently, so a tie-up between the two companies could still be in the offing.
However, despite the money issues, Fab 30 will be a shot in the arm for AMD. It will now have two major fabs – in Dresden and Austin, Texas – producing Athlons, so it should be able to guarantee a steady supply to potential OEM customers, and it will once again overtake Intel Corp in the technology arms race. The 733MHz Coppermine chips that Intel has just introduced still use aluminum interconnects, and Intel doesn’t plan to start using copper until it moves to a 0.13 micron process late next year. That is also when the company currently plans to introduce processors that run at 1GHz and over, with the ‘Willamette’ range. However, given this new challenge, Intel is likely to shunt all those schedules forward as fast as it can.
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