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AMD Announces Development of DTX Open Standard to Help Enable Broad Adoption of Small Form Factor PCs



    AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced development of DTX, an open
    standard specification designed by AMD to enable the broad adoption of
    small form factor PCs. The DTX standard will be designed to empower
    OEMs, ODMs, and component vendors to deliver innovative solutions to
    market that are smaller, quieter, and desktop-friendly, while
    leveraging commonalities within the ecosystem that benefit both
    customers and end users. The DTX standard will take advantage of the
    existing ATX infrastructure and benefits, including cost efficiency,
    system options and backward-compatibility, to allow for
    ground-breaking PC design. A review copy of the DTX specifications is
    planned to be made available by AMD in Q1 2007.

    "As a customer-centric company, AMD is constantly evaluating
    platforms and working with its ecosystem partners to bring innovation
    to the market in a way that minimizes disruption," said Bob Brewer,
    corporate vice president, Desktop Division, AMD. "To help meet this
    need, AMD is taking the initiative to define an open standard for
    small form factor designs. The DTX specification will be designed to
    allow the broad ecosystem to develop small form factor solutions and
    deliver new, innovative and cost-effective systems to both businesses
    and consumers."

    The DTX standard will be designed to embrace energy-efficient
    processors from AMD or other hardware vendors, and allow an optimally
    designed small form factor system to consume less power and generate
    less noise. When processor power consumption is reduced, system size
    and cooling costs can also go down. Energy efficient processors can
    also help extend the longevity of PCs, while offering consumer and
    business users a quiet, more pleasant experience in their offices or
    living rooms.

    OEMs will also be able to enjoy the inherent cost benefits of
    standardization. With the DTX open standard specification, the
    potential exists for the small form factor market to reap the similar
    benefits to what the ATX standard has done for the desktop market in
    recent years.

    DTX will be designed to provide improved motherboard layout
    standardization, while being sensitive to the needs of OEMs, ODMs, and
    component vendors. As the desktop market moves to lower thermal design
    power (TDP) processors and works to lower costs, an eye to balancing
    interchangeability of components with small form factor products
    becomes critical. In addition, DTX chassis vendors can help mitigate
    the financial risk associated with proprietary small form factor
    designs by offering DTX-standard products to the channel, in either
    component form or as bare-bones systems. The general DTX specification
    will only define a minimum set of parameters necessary for
    interoperability, freeing vendors to innovate.

    -- DTX, which will allow up to four motherboards - for low cost -
    per standard printed circuit board manufacturing panel sizes;
    and

    -- Mini-DTX, which will allow up to six motherboards - for low
    cost - per standard printed circuit board manufacturing panel
    sizes;

    -- DTX motherboards can be manufactured in as few as four-layers
    of printed circuit board wiring for motherboard cost savings.

    -- By leveraging backward-compatibility with ATX infrastructure,
    vendors may gain a low-cost DTX product offering with little
    development expense.

    "ASUS is pleased to work with AMD again to bring more innovation
    on desktop solutions, leveraging production efficiencies that will be
    available with the open DTX standard," said Joe Hsieh, Vice President
    of ASUS MB Business Unit. "Together with ASUS' excellent design and
    manufacturing ability, end users will enjoy a sleek and cool desktop
    computing experience using our motherboards."

    "We applaud AMD's commitment to open standards in developing
    specifications that enable powerful system options and is
    backward-compatible with the existing ATX infrastructure," said Norman
    Tsai, EPS Sales vice president, MSI. "MSI is dedicated to enabling
    customers to deliver innovative systems with minimal requirements or
    disruptions."

    The market pull for small form factors PCs is of particular
    interest in the small and medium business (SMB) and consumer markets
    that value the size advantage, power savings, and quiet nature of
    energy-efficient systems.

    "The evolution of desktop systems into smaller form factors with
    lower thermal design power is a major step forward for the PC industry
    as a whole," said Bob O'Donnell, program vice president, Clients and
    Displays, IDC. "OEMs and ODMs will be able to design new PCs that take
    up less space and are more aesthetically pleasing through the use of
    motherboard specifications promoting energy efficiency and smaller
    form factor designs. This will translate to better differentiated and
    more competitive solutions for their customers."

    About AMD

    Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of
    innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and
    consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open
    innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior
    customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses
    worldwide. For more information, visit www.amd.com.

    AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, and combinations thereof are trademarks
    of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational
    purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.