AMD's new chip: Metaron?

They may sound like Japanese giant robot cartoon characters, but Metaron and Opteron are among the names AMD is considering for its upcoming 64-bit processors

AMD has filed trademark applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office for two possible processor names, preparing the ground for marketing its ClawHammer chip, which is expected to be released by the end of this year.

The applications, for the names Metaron and Opteron, were filed in March; they supplement applications filed last December, for AMD Forteon, AMD Multeon and AMD Vanton. Also in December, AMD filed for the name variants AMD Metaron and AMD Opteron. ClawHammer is a new product line for AMD; it will launch alongside the current flagship Athlon line. The Athlon brand has been maintained for a succession of different core technologies, but the Hammer line, of which ClawHammer is the first arrival, is expected to have its own brand.

Hammer is based on AMD's x86-64 instruction set, which runs both current programming code and 64-bit code, capable of accessing much larger blocks of memory. Sixty-four-bit software is designed for large databases and other high-end processing work.

The ClawHammer part will be aimed at the mainstream desktop market and will be essentially presented as "a very fast Windows XP engine," according to an AMD spokesman. It will support one- and two-processor configurations.

News source: ZDNet UK