Phasing out the Duron

[LiamC]

Everywhere I've read (Reg, JC's, The Inq, AMDZone, TR) that has commented upon the demise of the Duron has said the same thing, but also ommitted something...

They all say that the Duron is to be phased out this year

Now for the ommission
AMD needs two product lines (Athlon, Duron) to compete with Intel (P4, Celly). AMD are going to only produce Athlon and Hammer by the time years end comes round.

This means that current Athlon becomes Duron, a la Celery 1200 (really a Pentium !!!

Hammer must be available in current Athlon volumes or better (I bet there will be some pent up demand) by then to assume the Athlon 64 mantle (current speculation as to Hammers official name).

Most people when talking about Hammer say that it will be late or we will only see small volumes by years end.

It's looking more likely that Hammer will arrive sooner and in better volumes than some suggest.

Could also be Jerry talking out of his ar*e again as well...

 

[James]

That's some pretty good thinking you've done there, Liam. Hopefully you're right!

 

[Tannin]

Bill, I should not be in the slightest surprised if what you say turns out to be true. After the humiliations they endured when their 0.35 micron process was not up to scratch, seeing them have the K5 sampling at 100MHz while both Cyrix and Intel were pumping out 200MHz class chips in volume, and then having the K6-233 rated as the fastest X86 on the planet but almost totally unavailable because of production problems .... well, they don't ever want to have to go through that again.

Since that time, AMD have become very wedded to the philosophy of "under-promise, over-deliver". What you suggest rings very true to me, if not in detail then at least in the broad brush strokes.

When AMD go quiet, it's usually because they have something pretty nice in the works.

But of course, if you don't have anything nice in the works, well, that's an even better reason to go quiet!