Editing Athlon (section)

== Brand history ==
=== K7 design and development===
The first Athlon processor was a result of AMD's development of K7 processors in the 1990s. AMD founder and then-CEO [[Jerry Sanders (businessman)|Jerry Sanders]]<ref name="HPCwire: 1998"/> aggressively pursued strategic partnerships and engineering talent in the late 1990s, working to build on earlier successes in the PC market with the [[AMD K6]] processor line.<ref name="Sanders promotes: 1998">{{cite news |author=CNET News Staff |title=IBM PCs tout AMD chips |url=https://www.cnet.com/news/ibm-pcs-tout-amd-chips/ |work=CNET |date=April 7, 1998 |access-date=August 4, 2020}}</ref><ref name="WSJ by Brammer: 2002">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=The Next Big Thing |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1028292261927297480 |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |date=August 5, 2002 |access-date=August 4, 2020}}</ref> One major partnership announced in 1998 paired AMD with semiconductor giant [[Motorola]]<ref name="HPCwire: 1998">{{cite web |url=http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc-bin/artread.pl?direction=Current&articlenumber=13625|title=Motorola Prepares to Manufacture AMD's Upcoming K7 Chip |publisher=HP |date=August 7, 1998 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928004540/http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc-bin/artread.pl?direction=Current&articlenumber=13625 |archive-date=September 28, 2007}}</ref> to co-develop [[Copper-based chips|copper-based semiconductor technology]], resulting in the K7 project being the first commercial processor to utilize copper [[Semiconductor device fabrication#Back-end-of-line .28BEOL.29 processing|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.<ref name="HPCwire: 1998"/> The K7 design team was led by [[Dirk Meyer]], who had previously worked as a lead engineer at [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] on multiple [[DEC Alpha|Alpha]] microprocessors. When DEC was sold to [[Compaq]] in 1998 and discontinued Alpha processor development, Sanders brought most of the Alpha design team to the K7 project.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}} This added to the previously acquired [[NexGen]] K6 team, which already included engineers such as [[Vinod Dham]].<ref name="TechSpot and Overview">{{cite news |author=Graham Singer |title=The Rise and Fall of AMD |url=https://www.techspot.com/article/599-amd-rise-and-fall/|work=TechSpot |date=November 21, 2012 |access-date=August 3, 2020 }}</ref>

=== Original release===
The AMD Athlon processor launched on June 23, 1999, with general availability by August 1999. Subsequently, from August 1999 until January 2002, this initial K7 processor was the fastest x86 chip in the world.<ref name="A"/> Wrote the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' on October&nbsp;5, 1999: "AMD has historically trailed Intel’s fastest processors, but has overtaken the industry leader with the new Athlon. Analysts say the Athlon, which will be used by [[Compaq]], [[IBM]] and other manufacturers in their most powerful PCs, is significantly faster than Intel’s flagship [[Pentium&nbsp;III]], which runs at a top speed of 600MHz."<ref name="LA Times: 1999">{{cite news |author=Charles Piller |title=AMD Boosts Lead Over Intel With New Version of Its Athlon Chip |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-05-fi-19012-story.html |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=October 5, 1999 |access-date=August 4, 2020}}</ref> A number of features helped the chips compete with Intel. By working with Motorola, AMD had been able to refine copper interconnect manufacturing about one year before Intel, with the revised process permitting [[180 nm|180-nanometer]] processor production. The accompanying die-shrink resulted in lower power consumption, permitting AMD to increase Athlon clock speeds to the 1&nbsp;GHz range.<ref name="AMD by Press Release: 2000">{{citation |url=https://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/Press_Release_729.aspx |title=AMD Announces First Revenue Shipments From Dresden "MEGAFAB" |publisher=AMD Press Release |date=June 5, 2000 |access-date=January 6, 2012 |archive-date=March 16, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316164430/http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/Press_Release_729.aspx |url-status=dead }}.</ref> The Athlon architecture also used the [[Alpha 21264#External interface|EV6]] bus licensed from DEC as its main system bus, allowing AMD to develop its own products without needing to license Intel's [[Gunning transceiver logic|GTL+]] bus.<ref name="Buses: Mile Beebee">{{cite news |author=Gary Mauler, Milt Beebe |title=I/O subsystems and capacity planning for clusters |work=Clustering Windows Server: A Road Map for Enterprise Solutions |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P5kx6MWu2eIC&q=EV6+bus+athlon+licensing&pg=PA113 |date=December 19, 2001 |isbn=9780080488493 |access-date=August 4, 2020}}</ref> By the summer of 2000, AMD was shipping Athlons at high volume, and the chips were being used in systems by [[Gateway, Inc.|Gateway]], [[Hewlett-Packard]], and [[Fujitsu Siemens Computers]] among others.<ref name="Voume: 2000">{{cite news |author=Richard Ricthmyer |title=AMD's chips hit high gear |url=https://money.cnn.com/2000/08/28/technology/amd/ |work=[[CNN]] |date=August 28, 2000 |access-date=August 4, 2020}}</ref>

===Later Athlon iterations===
The second-generation Athlon, the Thunderbird, debuted in 2000. AMD released the Athlon&nbsp;XP the following year,<ref name="A"/> and the Athlon&nbsp;XP's immediate successor, the [[Athlon&nbsp;64]], was an AMD64-architecture microprocessor released in 2003.<ref name="AMD Press: 2003"/> After the 2007 launch of the [[AMD Phenom|Phenom]] processors, the Athlon name was also used for mid-range processors, positioned above brands such as [[Sempron]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20071211104023/http://www.amdboard.com/amdid.html "AMD Athlon/Duron/Sempron CPU identification and OPN breakdown"], amdboard.com.</ref> The [[Athlon&nbsp;64&nbsp;X2]] was released in 2005 as the first native dual-core desktop CPU designed by AMD,<ref name="The Register for Athlon 54: 003"/> and the [[Athlon&nbsp;X2]] was a subsequent family based on the Athlon&nbsp;64&nbsp;X2.<ref name="HotHardware"/>  Introduced in 2009, [[Athlon&nbsp;II]] was a dual-core family of Athlon chips.<ref name="Regor: 2009"/>

A USD$55 low-power Athlon 200GE with a [[Radeon]] graphics processor was introduced in September 2018, sitting under the [[Ryzen&nbsp;3]] 2200G.<ref name="anandtech-20180906"/> This iteration of Athlon used AMD's Zen-based ''Raven Ridge'' core, which in turn had debuted in Ryzen with Radeon graphics processors.<ref name="Again for Anadtech: 2018">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=May 26, 2018 |title=Two New 35W Raven Ridge Parts: AMD Athlon 200GE and Athlon Pro 200GE |url=https://www.anandtech.com/show/12816/two-new-35w-raven-ridge-parts-exist-amd-athlon-200ge-and-athlon-pro-200ge |access-date=August 4, 2020 |work=Anandtech}}</ref> With the release, AMD began using the Athlon brand name to refer to "low-cost, high-volume products", in a situation similar to both Intel's [[Celeron]] and Pentium Gold.<ref name="anandtech-20180906"/> The modern Athlon 3000G was introduced in 2019 and was positioned as AMD's highest-performance entry-level processor.<ref name="F"/> AMD positions the Athlon against its rival, the [[Intel Pentium]]. While CPU processing performance is in the same ballpark,<ref name="Tom's Hardware and Carbotte: 2019"/> the Athlon 3000G uses [[Radeon RX Vega series|Radeon Vega]] graphics,<ref name="F"/> which are rated as more powerful than the Pentium's [[Intel UHD Graphics]].<ref name="Tom's Hardware and Carbotte: 2019">{{cite news |author=Kevin Carbotte |title=AMD Athlon vs Intel Pentium: Which Cheap Chips Are Best? |url=https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-athlon-intel-pentium-showdown,38737.html |work=Tom's Hardware |date=March 4, 2019 |access-date=August 4, 2020}}</ref>