AMD Unveils Ambitious Chip Plans

SAN FRANCISCO -- While the Street is rife with speculation that Advanced Micro DevicesAMD may split into multiple companies, the struggling chipmaker is outlining plans for products intended to keep AMD in the fight for several years to come.

On Wednesday AMD announced forthcoming versions of its most powerful and lucrative microprocessors designed for server computers, unveiling for the first time details of a 12-core chip.

The Sunnyale, Calif., company fleshed out its so-called product roadmap in a meeting with journalists, offering a first peak at some of the chips under development.

AMD server and workstation manager Randy Allen said the company's existing server processor, Barcelona, has commitments to be used by all the top server makers including DellDELL and Hewlett-PackardHPQ -- following delays in availability because of a bug -- and that demand and supply for the chip would reach a balanced level towards the end of the current quarter.

He reiterated that Shanghai, AMD's next version of the chip, which features smaller, 45-nanometer transistors, remains on track to begin production in late 2008.

AMD rival IntelINTChas been producing chips with 45 nanometer circuits since October. Intel is due to release its own next-generation processor, code-named Nehalem, in the second half of 2008, as well as a processor with 6-cores during that time.

On Wednesday, AMD added a 6-core chip to its line-up, slated for release in the second half of 2009.

And AMD said its server products will undergo a major transition in the first half of 2010, when the company releases new 6-core and 12-core processors, dubbed Sao Paolo and Magny Cours, respectively.