Amkor Technology, Inc. today announced that AMD has entered into an agreement to license Amkor's lead free (Pb-free) electroplated wafer bumping technology. Terms of the license agreement were not disclosed. The electronics industry is striving to reduce or eliminate certain elements and compounds, such as lead, mercury, cadmium and halogen, in favor of "Green" products in response to legislation in Europe and Japan, overall environmental concerns and market pressures. This drive to adopt "Green" products is especially strong in the consumer electronics market.

AMD plans to cut all the Radeon X1300 series, re-nominating RV516/RV505 to Radeon X1550, and overclocking them. Since the core is fabricated with 80nm process by TSMC, AMD confirmed that the core can be overclocked to 600MHz without changing the core voltage. Manufacturers are also approved to sell special overclocked Radeon X1550 version, which may be running at 700MHz with additional voltage and improved heat-sink. ATI Radeon X1550 256MB has the same price as Radeon X1300 - $65; while the special over-clocked edition costs $69. Its rival would be NVIDIA's GeForce 7300GS 256MB. Radeon X1550 has a 25% lead to GeForce 7300GS, and the boost is even higher for the special edition at 45%.

This year, Intel boasted at IDF about being the only company shipping 65nm chips. This is about to change.

The Inquirer reports that system integrators already have their hands on AMD's 65nm X2 CPUs. They have been shipping for 2 weeks already. The CPUs will be available to the public early 2007, yet they will be nothing more than a re-designed 90nm part.

If you're lucky, you could find one of these in an assembled HP or Dell AMD machine this year.

Below is a picture of AMD's 65nm X2 CPU:

AMD has quietly updated its proccesor line up by adding the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ and a 5400+ CPUs. Both models work at 2.8GHz but the Athlon 64 X2 5400+ has 2x512KB L2 cache, while the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ has 1MB per core for a total of 2MB L2 cache. The 5400+ is priced at $485 per 1,000 units, and the 5600+ is priced at $505 per 1,000 units.

At the International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) today, IBM and AMD presented papers describing the use of immersion lithography, ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics, and multiple enhanced transistor strain techniques for application to the 45nm microprocessor process generation. AMD and IBM expect the first 45nm products using immersion lithography and ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics to be available in mid-2008.

According to the Inquirer, NVIDIA, ATI and AMD could be in trouble for apparently conspiring to keep prices high. Allegedly executives of the companies have met to discuss the price of graphics processor units and therefore have received a summons by the Department of Justice, being asked to present data going back into the 1990s.

AMD has cut prices on four ATI products earlier this week. The products affected by the price cut include AMD ATI Radeon X1950 XTX, ATI Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition, ATI Radeon 9550 and TV Wonder 200 PCI. Under the new pricing AMD ATI Radeon X1950 XTX and ATI Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition will drop to $429 from the previous $449 while the ATI Radeon 9550 will drop to $79. AMD TV Wonder 200 PCI will drop down to $49. This is distributor pricing and only affects built by ATI products. It is unknown how the price cuts will affect retail pricing from local and online resellers. Other ATI products such as the Radeon X1950 Pro, X1650 Pro, TV Wonder 650 are unaffected.

Before the CPU's are available, AMD has decided to cut the prices. QuadFX processors are now $100 cheaper. The FX70 series will cost $499/699/899 for the FX70/72/74, respectively. The FX70 series of AMD CPU's should be available later this month.

SUNNYVALE, CALIF. -- December 5, 2006 --Launching the next generation of energy-efficient computing, AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the transition to 65nm process technology, beginning with the immediate availability of energy-efficient AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core desktop processors. The move to 65nm process technology enables AMD to produce more processors on a 300mm wafer, for increased production capacity, while continuing to aggressively scale performance and reduce power consumption. AMD processors built with 65nm line-widths are designed to deliver exceptional performance when running multiple applications, as well as enable small form factor PCs that complement both home and office environments. By mid-2007, AMD expects to be fully converted to 65nm production at Fab 36. With the rapid conversion to 65nm process technology, AMD is scaling capacity intelligently to meet growing demand worldwide for x86 processors.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is expected to become seventh in the iSuppli rankings, rising from fifteenth last year. Preliminary figures suggest that its revenue may have risen by as much as 90%. Intel remains at the top of the list as the number one chip supplier in the world despite a fall in revenue, with overall chip sales by all manufacturers rising 9%.

Thermaltake Technology today announced the world's first AMD Quad FX platform ready chassis series, Armor Extreme Edition and Kandalf Extreme Edition series. These two chassis series are co-developed by AMD and Thermaltake to support AMD's latest and technologically advanced AMD Quad FX platform. Thermaltake has worked with AMD during the development phase of this high-performance gaming chassis, which is reengineered specifically to support AMD Quad FX platform. All cases come with two 120mm and two 90mm ultra-quiet fans for maximum cooling. Complete details of Thermaltake's Kandalf series cases can be found here.

AMD has received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division in connection with the DOJ's investigation into potential antitrust violations related to graphics processors and cards. AMD entered the graphics processor business following the company's acquisition of ATI Technologies, Inc. last month (October 25, 2006). The DOJ has not made any specific allegations against AMD or ATI. AMD intends to cooperate with the investigation.

AMD today demonstrated the industry's first native quad-core x86 server processor, achieving four x86 processing cores on a single die of silicon. At the annual AMD Industry Analyst Forum, a server powered by four upcoming Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors (codenamed Barcelona), manufactured on 65nm silicon-on-insulator process technology, was shown utilizing all 16 cores. By delivering a consistent thermal envelope while adding two more processing cores, along with micro-architectural enhancements, AMD expects to significantly advance the performance-per-watt capabilities of AMD Opteron processors.