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AMD Next Generation Processor Technology Slides

We have some official AMD slides to share with you that outline AMD's upcoming Quad-Core technology that has recently taped out. This tech will be the heart of next-gen Opteron and Athlon 64 FX processors.

First let me say that these slides are simply a glimpse into AMD's next generation architecture. Later we will have a follow-up article that showcases discussions with AMD Senior VP and CTO Phil Hester as well as AMD Senior Technical Architect Pat Conway.

Introduction

As many of you might know, AMD has recently taped out its Quad-Core Opteron. This upcoming Opteron has of course tipped AMD's hat when it comes to the next generation AMD Athlon 64 FX processor. AMD has shared with us that we can certainly count on the next-gen Athlon 64 mirroring the Quad-Core Opteron design less a few HyperTransport bus connects. Let's take a look at some of the AMD Quad-Core basics and changes.

AMD Next Generation Quad-Core Processor

As expected, AMD's next-gen desktop technology will first be showcased with in the yet-to-be announced Quad-Core Athlon 64 FX. At recent demonstrations of the AMD 4x4, Quad-Core has certainly been referenced as a desktop part. The slide below shows you the map of the upcoming Quad-Core Opteron as well as the Athlon 64 FX.

Certainly the highlights here are 65nm SOI which should bring power usage down even further, "enhanced" Instructions per Clock, and a totally redesigned cache system that introduces a shared L3 cache. And most importantly the Quad-Core design.

Shared L3 Cache

One of the most drastic changes that will be recognized by the enthusiast is that we have an additional caching unit identified as "L3 cache."

This L3 cache is shared by each of the four cores and allows for some latency issues to be addressed in a four core environment. It has been noted to the L3 can be expanded in size as well.

Clock and Power Planes

Behind the power of four cores we have some very intelligent power and clock scaling systems as well.

Each core will carry its own PLL or "clock-gen." This will allow the Quad-Core Opteron and Athlon 64 FX processors to scale down their power consumption very intelligently from being fully loaded.

As mentioned above, we will be following these slides up with some more details about AMD's upcoming Quad-Core technology.

Discussion:

Please join this thread dedicated to this topic in our AMD Forum.