AMD Announces Development Workstation Systems Giveaway

-AMD to give away five development workstations containing the latest AMD Athlon™ processor with DDR memory and Microsoft® Visual Studio 6.0 development toolset complimented by the Visual C++ 6.0 Processor Pack-

SUNNYVALE, CA -- 11/20/2000 -- AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced a development workstation systems giveaway to promote the new AMD Athlon™ processor and AMD-760™ chipset with support for Double Data Rate (DDR) memory. The development machines will include the new Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Processor Pack integrated into the Visual Studio 6.0 development environment. These development workstations provide product developers a platform with the power necessary for their hardware intensive needs.

The Visual C++ 6.0 Processor Pack contains built-in support for enhanced instruction sets provided by AMD processors. This processor pack is recommended for Visual C++ users who are interested in using 3DNow!™, MMX™ & Digital Signal Processing (DSP) instructions and is currently available to customers now to download at the Microsoft website at http://www.microsoft.com/vstudio.

"AMD Athlon processor-based systems with DDR memory allow developers to efficiently manage their projects by enabling faster code compile times and application builds," said Dave Mendlen, lead product manager for Microsoft Visual Studio. "The positive results are even more noticeable when working on large projects."

"AMD Athlon processor-based systems, especially when coupled with DDR memory, give developers a compelling workstation platform solution for their development needs," said Rich Heye, vice president and general manager, Texas Microprocessor Division (TMD) of AMD. "The AMD Athlon processor's superior microarchitecture, system bus, floating point engine, enhanced 3DNow! technology and cache architecture gives Microsoft Visual Studio users an extraordinary and reliable computing experience for the demanding software development environment."

Five development workstation systems will be given away in the promotion. Developers can register for the development systems giveaway and renew the official rules at AMD's Developer Relations web site at http://www.amd.com/devconn. Winners are planned to be announced during the keynote address at Visual Studio Live! in San Francisco on January 13th, 2001. Developers registered for the giveaway are encouraged to attend Visual Studio Live!, but attendance is not mandatory for eligibility. Winners will be notified directly via e-mail and winners' names will be posted on the AMD website.

The workstations will feature the new AMD Athlon processor and AMD-760 chipset, DDR memory, Microsoft Windows® 2000 Professional, Visual Studio 6.0 Professional and Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Processor Pack, in addition to other high-end hardware components, and Microsoft DirectX and AMD developer Software Development Kits (SDKs).

About the AMD Athlon™ Processor
The AMD Athlon processor is an x86-compatible, seventh-generation design featuring a superpipelined, nine-issue superscalar microarchitecture optimized for high clock frequency; the industry's first fully pipelined, superscalar floating point unit for x86 platforms; high-performance cache architecture, now featuring 384KB of total on-chip cache (256KB of on-chip level (L2) cache and 128KB of on-chip level (L1) cache); enhanced 3DNow!™ technology with 24 additional instructions designed to improve integer math calculations, data movement for Internet streaming, and DSP communications. The AMD Athlon processor features either a 266MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) or a 200MHz FSB based on the Alpha™ EV6 bus protocol. AMD Athlon processors are manufactured using AMD's 0.18-micron process technology in Fab 25 in Austin, Texas and AMD's 0.18 micron technology in Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany.

AMD Athlon Processor Awards
The AMD Athlon processor, and systems based on it, have won more than 65 award worldwide. For a complete listing, please visit http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/awards/athlon.html

About DDR Memory Technology
Double Data Rate (DDR) memory technology is a successor technology to Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM) technology, the prevailing memory standard found in today's PCs. DDR memory leverages existing SDRAM technology, but with a 2.1GB/sec peak data rate, it can achieve memory transfer rates up to 100 percent higher than SDRAM. Next-generation DDR memory is thus expected to be manufactured at cost levels that are in line with today's mainstream PC memory costs. Consequently, PC users are expected to receive better overall system performance at system costs comparable to current SDRAM based systems.

Next-generation DDR memory technology will enable the AMD Athlon processor platform to deliver new levels of performance on math-intensive applications like video editing, CAD/CAM, scientific applications, and digital content creation, with minimal effect on system costs. DDR memory technology is supported by the AMD-760 chipset, and will help enable AMD to bring the advantages of DDR memory technology to workstation and high-end PC users.

About the AMD-760™ Chipset
The AMD-760 is AMD's next generation chipset for the AMD Athlon processor. It consists of two chips - the AMD-761™ system bus controller, or northbridge, and the AMD-766™ peripheral bus controller, or southbridge. The AMD-760 chipset unleashes the power of DDR memory, enabling the ultimate PC performance in multi-tasking and multimedia intensive applications. The AMD-760 chipset supports the AMD Athlon processor with both a 200MHz and 266MHz front side bus, as well as PC1600 and PC2100 Double Data Rate (DDR) memory and 4xAGP graphics.