"It gives us another degree of freedom," says Anixter. "This is our fire insurance."
In the meantime, AMD is betting its future on the Hammer architecture, due for a 2003 rollout. There'll be a consumer version called Clawhammer, capable of running 64Mbit code. Anixter says it'll also run today's 32Mbit programs faster than anything now available.
Another version, Sledgehammer, will be aimed directly at the same high-end server markets as Intel's.
Brookwood has studied preliminary design data on the Hammer series, and thinks it'll live up to AMD's claims.
"They can take the X86 [32Mbit] code and run it on Hammer, and it'll run like a bat out of hell," he says.
Uphill fight
But Brookwood concedes that AMD faces an uphill fight trying to find a major server vendor willing to use the processor in its high-end machines.
"Last time I looked, most of those companies, with the exception of Sun, were pretty well locked up in the Intel camp," he says. And Sun makes its own 64Mbit chips. So AMD will have to fight its way into the 64Mbit arena before it can even start to compete.
Chip analyst Linley Gwennap of the Linley Group thinks AMD is wasting its time. Already, the leading server makers have committed to Itanium. That means they're spending millions to design Itanium-based systems and compatible software. The first-generation Itanium hasn't been a hit with end users, but at least Intel has a finished product to offer. The first Hammer chip is over a year away.
"It's about two or three years too late" for Hammer, says Gwennap. "The game's over."
As for Clawhammer, Intel's Otellini says it's a solution to a problem nobody's got.
"We do not see the need for 64 bits on the desktop." But Anixter says that computer makers, fearful of being at Intel's mercy, are eager for a 64Mbit alternative.
"People don't like to deal with monopolies. Customers don't like dealing with Intel," Anixter says. "Customers love to work with us."
AMD is betting hundreds of millions that it can keep gaining on Intel, which is spending billions to fend off its rival. All that cash and geek machismo make the headquarters of AMD and Intel the roughest neighborhood in Silicon Valley.
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