AMD's Mustang chip gets hammered

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced at Comdex Las Vegas that it has

canceled plans for the so-called "Mustang" processor, a chip designed

to be used in servers. The chip would have competed with Intel's Xeon and

high-end Pentium processors. Instead, the company will focus on a

next-generation 64-bit family of "Hammer" processors to compete

head-on with Intel in the server chip market.

AMD said the Mustang design and use had become obsolete before the product

was even ready to be marketed. Instead, other more powerful general purpose

Palomino chips that the company is planning to launch in the near future will be

able to perform the same tasks at a lower cost. "The Mustang chip was a

server-workstation chip, and Palomino will be our entry level for servers,''

said AMD spokesman Ward Tisdale.

AMD showed off the Palomino chip for desktop computers running at 1.5

gigahertz at the Comdex trade show today in Las Vegas. The Palomino will compete

effectively with Intel's 1.4 GHz P4 processors. Samples of the Palomino chip

will be available in December, with volume shipments in the first quarter.

AMD chief Jerry Sanders said AMD will try to compete with Intel's Itanium

processors in the market for chips for powerful servers. To that end, AMD is

developing a line of 64-bit Hammer chips scheduled for launch in 2002. At the

low end, the Clawhammer will be used in workstations, low-end servers and

high-end desktop machines, while the Sledgehammer will be aimed at

high-performance servers.