Duron to be Replaced by Athlon
By
Mario Rodrigues
Date: April 18, 2002
During AMD's webcast of its
Q1 financial results, the chipmaker announced the demise of Duron, which
will happen late this year. Slower speed grades of Athlon XP will be used to
supplant Duron in the value segment. This makes sense for several reasons. On
the marketing front, the value space gets a nice performance boost and will also
benefit from Athlon XP's success, which will add little promotional cost. From a
manufacturing perspective, AMD has said that the cost difference between Duron
and Athlon is not that great, so as it transitions to 130nm technology in an
economically challenged sales environment, it makes sense for AMD to take this
route to help maintain market share. On the effect that this may have on Intel,
their marketing gurus are no doubt discussing how to react to this very
situation. This makes Willamette-128, Celeron's replacement, a dead product; it
just won't be able to compete with Athlon. An interesting thread on this subject
is
here. It will be interesting to see if Celeron gets the chop.
AMD is also using the Athlon XP nomenclature to
re-brand its notebook products as well, which means that AMD is using the
success and high exposure of its Athlon XP brand to maximize sales of its
mainstream products. With this level of investment that is going into the Athlon
XP brand, it may be possible that AMD has plans to continue with this name in
one form or another when Hammer arrives. Maybe we'll see the Athlon XP name on
Ferrari's dominating Grand Prix racecars as well. AMD's Q1 webcast can be
listened to from
here.
The details of that webcast can be read
here
and
here. VHJ's article on Hammer names can be read
here.
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