Amish-Chief asks: What are your plans for future AMD-supported laptops? The K6 has enjoyed a steady reign, but are there any official plans to port the Palomino as a low-powered CPU in a laptop (or possibly a 2nd-Gen Duron or TBird?)

AMD: You got it exactly, the Palomino family of processors are designed to bring the AMD Athlon processor into the performance mobile market. When combined with the AMD-760MP chipset, the Palomino processor will also bring AMD into the multiprocessor workstation/server markets. The mobile AMD Athlon processor is planned for production during the first half of this year, and in addition to lower-voltage operation will also support PowerNow! technology. AMD¡¦s PowerNow! technology enables the processor to alter frequency/voltage on the fly based on application demand. Most people don¡¦t realize, but PowerNow! was the first technology available in the marketplace that altered CPU frequency/voltage on the fly based on application demand. Can¡¦t wait for our IT department to start to roll-out corporate laptops featuring the mobile AMD Athlon processor, should be a great machine.

Casket Asks: IDF is coming up soon. Nvidia is supposedly launching their NV20 there. Last year AMD announced a new chip a couple of days after IDF. Will AMD take this opportunity to announce their newly enhanced Athlon core (Palomino)... and also the 760mp?

AMD: Sorry, I can¡¦t spill the beans on upcoming product launch dates. I can tell you we expect to have 1.3Ghz Athlon in production during the first quarter of 2001, and that 1.4/1.5GHz AMD Athlon processors are planned for production in the second quarter. The Hammer processors are planned to enter production in the first half of 2002 at speeds in excess of 2GHz. The AMD-760MP chipset is still on target, and we expect systems featuring the chipset to be available during the second quarter of this year.

Andorion asks: Will Palomino have SSE2 support? If not, what is the next AMD processor that will? Will you be introducing any new instruction sets before x86-64 is released?

AMD: Sorry guys, in general I can¡¦t comment on rumors or speculation about future products. We have said that the Hammer family of processors are planned to continue to support the x87 instruction set and AMD¡¦s 3DNow! technology, and that we anticipate our additions to the 3DNow! instruction set used in the Hammer family of processors will be complete and fully compatible with both SSE and SSE2.