AMD Ships 90 nm, Reveals Operational Gains

摘要

"In the mid-90s, AMD realized we would have to start doing business differently if we wanted to compete with a company 10x our size," reflected Tom Sonder-man, director of automated precision manufacturing (APM) at Advanced Micro Devices (Sunnyvale, Calif.). Today, AMD is shipping 90 nm Athlon 64 microprocessors (Figs. 1 and 2) for notebooks, and is on track to deliver 90 nm dual-core products to add performance while limiting power consumption mid-next year. With the introduction of copper at the 180 nm node; low-k dielectrics, SOI and first-generation strained silicon at 130 nm; and soon second-generation strained silicon at 90 nm, Sonderman attributes much of the company's success to its ability to manage technology transitions in a complex manufacturing environment. "This strategy allowed us to get three exotic material changes behind us and be able to reap the benefits of those material changes as we paved the way to 90 nm."