Athlon

Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The original Athlon (now called Athlon Classic) was the first seventh-generation x86 processor. The original Athlon was the first desktop processor to reach speeds of one gigahertz (GHz). AMD has continued using the Athlon name with the Athlon 64, an eighth-generation processor featuring x86-64 (later renamed AMD64) architecture, and the Athlon II.

The Athlon made its debut on June 23, 1999. Athlon comes from the Greek άθλος (athlos) meaning ″contest″.

Background

AMD founder (and then-CEO) Jerry Sanders aggressively pursued strategic partnerships and engineering talent in the late 1990s, desiring to leverage the success AMD had gained in the PC market with the preceding AMD K6 line of processors. One major partnership announced in 1998 paired AMD with semiconductor giant Motorola to co-develop copper-based semiconductor technology, and resulted with the K7 project being the first commercial processor to utilize copper fabrication technology. In the announcement, Sanders referred to the partnership as creating a "virtual gorilla" that would enable AMD to compete with Intel on fabrication capacity while limiting AMD's financial outlay for new facilities.