Sources close to AMD said today that future plans for the K7 are already well in place, after its Dresden fab comes onstream next year. AMD has always had designs to use copper, as first revealed by The Register when it talked to senior VP Dana Krelle at the introduction of the K6-2 in Versailles 15 months back. But now sources at the company have revealed that it will launch a 1000MHz K7-Intel buster early in the year 2000. They say it will have an even faster bus than the 200MHz on the second iteration of the K7, expected in the second half of 1999. Last July, The Register exclusively revealed that the K7 was taped out. At the time, a source told us that its Dresden fab will use copper interconnects in designing its chips. (Story: AMD completes K7 plan). Earlier in that month, AMD and Motorola struck a cross licensing deal on the technology. (Story: AMD and Motorola pool efforts on copper) Copper technology was invented by IBM Microelectronics in cooperation with Motorola. IBM is currently helping AMD to produce enough parts to support demand. Hopefully, when AMD can stand on its own fab feet, it won’t have to pay a huge amount to IBM to sever such an arrangement, as Cyrix-NatSemi did earlier this year... ® Other K7 stories Naked K7 found in downtown Las Vegas AMD K7 snatches at Intel high-end crown Compaq, AMD continue to squeeze Intel AMD to take on Intel in SMP market AMD shows closet to trespasser Fabless chip companies are flawed, AMD claims AMD outlines future plans Dana Krelle, his chocolate cookies and he first starts talking dirty (copper to you)