AMD launches PC server assault

By Michael Kanellos

AMD will make its biggest pitch into the server market to date when it unveils a pair of processors later today.

The California-based manufacturer is releasing the Athlon 2200+ MP for multiprocessor servers and workstations, as well as a new version of the Athlon 2000+ MP built on the advanced 130-nanometer manufacturing process. The earlier version of the chip was made on the 180-nanometer process. The nanometer measurement refers to the average size of the features on the chip.

Although AMD has been in the PC processor business for around 20 years, the company only started to penetrate the server market in an appreciable way in the past year with the release of a version of its Athlon chip, along with a complimentary chipset, that could fit in two-processor systems. Typically, server chips sell for more than their desktop counterparts and hence are potentially more profitable.

In the second quarter, the company accounted for 5.5 per cent of the processors shipped in the so-called Intel-server market, according to Mercury Research. Intel servers use chips based on the architecture devised by Intel and typically run Linux or Windows. In contrast, traditional servers contain Risc chips and run Unix.

Although AMD's second-quarter share represents a decline from the 8.5 per cent achieved by the company in the first quarter, combined totals so far this year indicate that AMD is making some progress.

Next year, the company will try to push further into the market with a family of chips code-named Hammer. Analysts have said that the way Hammer chips communicate with one another - through a high-speed link called HyperTransport - could increase overall server performance.

Michael Kanellos writes for News.com