AMD has just released a statement detailing the latest developments regarding their Quad-Core Barcelona processors.

The topics are regarding:

• For the initial ramp up "hundreds of thousands" processors were promised.
• TLB cache issues
• Quad-Core AMD Opteron availability
• AMD Opteron market share

"You may remember that during our Q3 earnings call, AMD acknowledged that our initial ramp of Barcelona had been slower than anticipated. However we did say during that call that we would ship "hundreds of thousands of quad-core processors" into the server and desktop segments during Q4. AMD is tracking to this guidance. Quad Core AMD Opteron processor is the most advanced x86 processor ever introduced to the market and as such there are design and process tuning steps that have taken longer than expected.

There has been some talk about an erratum relative to our TLB cache in Barcelona as well as Phenom processors resulting in delays. AMD notified customers of this erratum and released a BIOS fix prior to the Nov. 19th launch that resolves it. We are experiencing strong AMD Phenom demand and are shipping parts to channel, system builders and OEM customers.

Respective to Quad-Core AMD Opteron, we are only shipping processors earmarked for specific end-user installations where customers have had the opportunity to validate the stability and robustness of the solution where it leverages the BIOS fix or some other potential software workarounds. Quad Core AMD Opteron processors shipping for general availability in the Q108 timeframe will not have this erratum.

In addition to the strong demand for quad-core AMD processors, we also continue to see strong demand for dual-core AMD Opteron processors. To highlight this demand, the recent Q307 server numbers from IDC show growth in share for AMD-based server products in both U.S. and WW x86 system sales. In fact, in WW x86 4P sales, AMD saw a 3.4% quarter over quarter increase."