Advanced Micro Devices is looking to further chip away at Intel's share of the retail market with Monday's announcement of 15 new processors, including the first copper-wired Athlons and a new low-cost chip, the Duron. Leading the assault are 12 new Athlon processors, known by the code name Thunderbird, that are being offered at six clock speeds and in two packaging configurations at speeds of up to 1GHz (1,000MHz). AMD's Duron chip, which runs at speeds of up to 700MHz, is AMD's first low-cost processor to use Athlon technology.

　　The two new types of chips are important for consumers considering the purchase of a new PC: The Thunderbird chips will raise the bar for performance on the high end, while the Duron will represent AMD's first Athlon-based, low-priced processor for value PCs.

　　A key change in the Thunderbird chip's design is aimed at eliminating an advantage previously held by Intel's Pentium III processors. Specifically, AMD added 256KB of processor-dedicated memory to the chip. While earlier Athlons featured 512KB of this memory, known as Level 2 cache, it was situated off the chip and could not be accessed as quickly as on-die memory. Meanwhile, the integrated cache of the Thunderbird will match or beat the Pentium III, depending on the benchmarks used, analysts say.

　　But while AMD lagged behind Intel in the migration to an on-die L2 cache, it moved ahead of its giant rival by shipping copper-wired PC chips before Intel.

　　The new Athlons will be marketed under the same brand name but will be marked as "performance enhanced." AMD will offer them in speeds of 750MHz, 800MHz, 850MHz, 900MHz, 950MHz, and 1GHz clock speeds. Pricing will range between US$319 and $990. AMD, according to sources, will offer a 1.1GHz Thunderbird in the third quarter.

　　The new chips, which will eventually replace AMD's current Athlon, are also the first revenue products to ship from the company's new fabrication plant in Dresden, Germany. While the Dresden-made chips will be wired with copper, AMD said same-speed Athlons produced at the company's Austin, Texas fab will use traditional aluminum wiring. Nothing on the products' packaging will note whether the chips, both made using the 0.18-micron process, contain copper or aluminum wiring, an AMD official said.

　　Eventually, major chip makers are expected to migrate to copper wiring, since the metal is a more efficient conduit for electricity, which has become increasingly critical as chips move toward higher and higher clock speeds.