''AMD's Athlon 64 sales to raise with 50%''

Taiwanese motherboard and chipset makers expect that the unit sales of AMD's Athlon 64 (K8) processors are going to raise sequentially with 50% in the second half of this year. The two key factors that will lead to this growth would be the improved yield rates for AMD's K8 processors and AMD recent price cuts, about 20% on average.

Unit sales of K8-based motherboards accounted for only about 5% of total motherboards sold in the first half because AMD was unable to improve the yield rate of the K8 processor, and the prices of the CPUs were relatively high, the sources said.

However, the sources noted that sales of K8 processors started gaining momentum in July and should continue to expand at a rapid pace in August, following the July 26 price cuts.

VIA Technologies, a supplier of K8 chipsets, is expected to benefit from the rising sales of the K8 platform, boosting shipments of its K8 chipsets to 10% of its total chipset shipments in the fourth quarter, compared to a single-digit rate in the first half, according to sources at VIA.

Source: DigiTimes