Xebec
Well-known member
Back in the mid 1990s AMD was late in releasing their "5th gen" microprocessor - the AMD K5. The K5 was 5th gen in naming but had a lot of innovations that were closer in design to Intel's 6th gen (P6) Pentium Pro CPUs.
IIRC the chip was both later to market than AMD planned, and they had trouble reaching expected clock speeds. They did partially resolve the clock speed issue with a rework of the die (5k86 vs SSA), but the K5 never ended up as successful as the K6 or even earlier Am486/Am5x86 (486 based) designs with system builders.
The company was 'famously saved' by buying NexGen which provided a better design that AMD turned into the K6.
I'm curious - if AMD hadn't bought NexGen, but managed to survive the financial crisis they were in -- what were their plans for a next gen CPU?
IIRC the chip was both later to market than AMD planned, and they had trouble reaching expected clock speeds. They did partially resolve the clock speed issue with a rework of the die (5k86 vs SSA), but the K5 never ended up as successful as the K6 or even earlier Am486/Am5x86 (486 based) designs with system builders.
The company was 'famously saved' by buying NexGen which provided a better design that AMD turned into the K6.
I'm curious - if AMD hadn't bought NexGen, but managed to survive the financial crisis they were in -- what were their plans for a next gen CPU?