AMD Plans 12-Core Server Chips for Q1 2011

Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices, the world's second largest processor vendor, has recently confirmed that it plans to launch its next-generation Opteron processors, featuring a 12-core design, in the first quarter of 2010. The launch of the new chips has been confirmed by one of the company's officials, speaking at a presentation at the Hot Chips conference at the Standford University. According to available details, the new solutions will boast reduced clock-speeds and will draw the same power as the company's recently-launched six-core processors.

Pat Conway said, in a presentation at the Hot Chips conference at Standford University, that his company was preparing the launch of its new generation of Opteron server processors, aimed at providing customers with a 12-core processor design, improving performance for virtualization-ready systems. Code-named Magny-Cours, the new Opterons are designed with two six-cores into a single package, using the same power as Istanbul chips.

Unfortunately, the specific details related to the new processors' clock speeds haven't been released yet, but Conway did deliver a few pieces of info on the Mangy-Cours. The new processor will use two six-core chips, connected by four hyperthreaded interconnects, and will be targeted at two-and four-socket servers. In addition, it has been featured with a total of 12MB of L3 cache, each core supporting 512KB of L2 cache. According to Conway, the chip will be manufactured on the current 45nm manufacturing technology, at the company's spinoff, GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

AMD is also working on a new architecture for future server processors, codenamed Bulldozer. The company's future server processors, based on said Bulldozer architecture, will be built on a 32nm manufacturing technology and are expected to make a debut sometime in 2011. In addition, AMD is aiming to provide customers with a new 16-core chip codenamed Interlagos, which is also due out in 2011.