Editing Athlon (section)

=== 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>