AMD expects to launch dual-core Opteron processors for servers and workstations next year. The news come only a week after main rival, Intel unveiled its plans for future processors, both companies plan to take the multi-core path with a very close release timeframe.

The Direct Connect architecture used to build the Opteron processor makes it easy for AMD's designers to place two processor cores on the same silicon die, said Ben Williams, vice president of AMD's server and workstation business. Opteron features an integrated memory controller and Hypertransport interconnects that can connect the processor to the I/O port or directly to another processor, he said.

On a related story, ARM will unveil this week at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose, California, a unique multi-processor core technology, capable of up to 4-way cache coherent symmetric multi-processing (SMP) running Linux, the architecture is based on ARM's own ARMv6 architecture.

I was wondering when we were going to get to this point.