Athlon

Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The original Athlon (now called Athlon Classic) was the first seventh-generation x86 processor. The original Athlon was the first desktop processor to reach speeds of one gigahertz (GHz). AMD has continued using the Athlon name with the Athlon 64, an eighth-generation processor featuring x86-64 (later renamed AMD64) architecture, and the Athlon II.

The Athlon made its debut on June 23, 1999. Athlon comes from the Greek άθλος (athlos) meaning ″contest″.

Background

AMD founder (and then-CEO) Jerry Sanders aggressively pursued strategic partnerships and engineering talent in the late 1990s, desiring to leverage the success AMD had gained in the PC market with the preceding AMD K6 line of processors. One major partnership announced in 1998 paired AMD with semiconductor giant Motorola to co-develop copper-based semiconductor technology, and resulted with the K7 project being the first commercial processor to utilize copper 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.

Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American worldwide semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, United States, that develops computer-processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While initially it manufactured its own processors, the company became fabless after GlobalFoundries was spun off in 2009. AMD's main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers, workstations and personal computers, and embedded systems applications.

AMD is the second-largest supplier and only significant rival to Intel in the market for x86-based microprocessors. Since acquiring ATI in 2006, AMD and its competitor Nvidia have dominated the discrete graphics processor unit (GPU) market.

Company history

First twelve years

Advanced Micro Devices was formally incorporated on May 1, 1969, by Jerry Sanders, along with seven of his colleagues from Fairchild Semiconductor. Sanders, an electrical engineer who was the director of marketing at Fairchild, had like many Fairchild executives grown frustrated with the increasing lack of support, opportunity, and flexibility within that company, and decided to leave to start his own semiconductor company. The previous year Robert Noyce, who had invented the first practical integrated circuit or microchip in 1959 at Fairchild, had left Fairchild together with Gordon Moore and founded the semiconductor company Intel in July 1968.

Crysis 3

Crysis 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by German video game developer Crytek and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was released in North America on 19 February 2013. Officially announced 16 April 2012, it is the third main installment of the Crysis series, a sequel to the 2011 video game Crysis 2, and runs on the CryEngine 3 game engine.

Crysis 3's gameplay revolves around Prophet, a Nanosuit holder who is on a quest to take revenge on the CELL Corporation, and the Alpha Ceph, the leader of the Ceph alien race. He is accompanied by Psycho, the protagonist of Crysis Warhead. The story of the game serves as the end of the Crysis trilogy. Gameplay revolves around the use of the Nanosuit, which grants players a variety of abilities such as being invisible. New features introduced in Crysis 3 includes a new compound bow and the "hacking" feature, which allows players to hack into enemies' equipment and weapons. New additions to the game includes Rip & Throw, a new Nanosuit ability, and an asymmetrical multiplayer game mode called "The Hunter".

Pentium

Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel since 1993. In its current form, Pentium processors are considered entry-level products that Intel rates as "two stars", meaning that they are above the low-end Atom and Celeron series but below the faster Core i3, i5 and i7 lines as well as the high-end Xeon processors.

The current Pentium processors have only the name in common with the early ones, and are in fact based on the Intel Core architecture, typically implemented by lowering the clock frequency and disabling some features, such as hyper-threading, virtualization and, partly, L3 cache.

The name Pentium is originally derived from the Greek word pente (πέντε), meaning "five" (a reference to Intel's fifth-generation microarchitecture employed on the first Pentium processors), with the Latin ending -ium.

Overview

During development Intel generally identifies processors with codenames, such as Prescott, Willamette, Coppermine, Katmai, Klamath or Deschutes. These usually become widely known, even after the processors are given official names on launch.

Stock exchange

A stock exchange or bourse is an exchange where stock brokers and traders can buy and/or sell stocks (also called shares), bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and dividends. Securities traded on a stock exchange include stock issued by listed companies, unit trusts, derivatives, pooled investment products and bonds. Stock exchanges often function as "continuous auction" markets, with buyers and sellers consummating transactions at a central location, such as the floor of the exchange.

To be able to trade a security on a certain stock exchange, it must be listed there. Usually, there is a central location at least for record keeping, but trade is increasingly less linked to such a physical place, as modern markets use electronic networks, which gives them advantages of increased speed and reduced cost of transactions. Trade on an exchange is restricted to brokers who are members of the exchange. In recent years, various other trading venues, such as electronic communication networks, alternative trading systems and "dark pools" have taken much of the trading activity away from traditional stock exchanges.