One widely-anticipated briefing will be held at the Microprocessor Forum in Silicon Valley by Advanced Micro Devices Inc on the K7, its seventh generation processor to compete directly with Intel but one that may help AMD leapfrog ahead of its rival for the first time.

"They will be putting out a seventh generation processor, probably even before Intel ships its seventh generation," said Linley Gwennap, editor of the Microprocessor Report, which is hosting the highly technical meeting. "That could give them a chance to get ahead here, that would be a big change for AMD."

AMD's K7 is expected initially to run at a speed of 500 megahertz when it comes out in the first half of 1999 and it could surpass the performance of Intel's Katmai, a chip with an instruction set that is afollow-on to its MMX multimedia technology. Katmai is due sometime in the first half of 1999.

Last week, on a conference call to discuss the company's first profitable quarter after a long string of losses, AMD chairman W.J. (Jerry) Sanders said the company will initially manufacture the K7 using current aluminum connector technology and gradually move to the faster copper wiring, enabling the K7 to reach a speed of one gigahertz in the year 2000.

Intel's seventh generation technology will first appear in two processors currently code-named Willamette and Foster sometime in late 2000 or early 2001, an Intel executive told reporters in a briefing.

Gwennap said while he could not yet disclose any of the technical details from AMD on the K7, the part is impressive.

"It definitely looks like a major technical advancement from them," he said.

Analysts also point out, however, that AMD has a history of major manufacturing problems in transitioning to new microprocessor architectures, a problem that hasplagued the Sunnyvale, California-based company in the past.

"I'd hate to be investing in them in 1998, where I had to bet on him (Sanders) getting his K7 out on time and that he will get his 0.18 micron technology turned on," said David Wu, an analyst with ABN-AMRO Chicago Corp, referring to a change in the manufacturing process that creates even finer linewidths between transistors on the chips.

Other companies will also detail major new microprocessors at the conference. National Semiconductor Corp.'s Cyrix unit will discuss a new microprocessor core, code-named Jalapeno, which is also expected to use 0.18 micron technology.

Jalapeno is completely new architecture for Cyrix which seeks to speed up the flow of data by streamlining the design of the processor.

Jalapeno may also in the future incorporate more system-on-a-chip functions, meaning that more functions performed by other chips will be embedded onto the microprocessor.

"They are betting that a kinder, simpler, gentler PC might sell moresystems," said Richard Doherty, director of the Envisioneering Group, a consulting firm in Seaford, N.Y.

National's chairman and chief executive Brian Halla is also expected to outline his vision for single-chip computers. National will also discuss its MXI processor, due sometime in 1999, a chip that will add more functions onto the main processor.

At last year's Microprocessor Forum, Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co. were the focus of attention, unveiling the first technical details of their joint project in developing Intel's future 64-bit computing architecture and the first chip of that venture, code-named Merced. Current PCs process data in 32-bit chunks.

Next week, Intel plans to provide more insight into the new architecture and other details about Merced. Since last year's meeting, Intel announced a delay of about six months in Merced, which is now expected to come out in volume production in mid-2000. Merced represents Intel's entry into the highest performance workstation and servermarket.

Digital Equipment Corp, now a subsidiary of Compaq Computer Corp. will detail the architecture of the next-generation Alpha, one of Merced's biggest competitors, which is expected to operate at a speed over one gigahertz.

Last year, Integrated Device Technology Inc. announced its entry into the Intel-compatible market with a line of clone chips and it gained one per cent of the market in 1997.

This year, a new start-up, called Rise Technology Co., of Santa Clara, California, will make its debut in the Intel clone market, with a low-power consuming chip for notebooks.

"Intel... is seeing more, stronger competition than they had before," said Gwennap. "People worry that Intel is just going to eat the whole market, but we are seeing lots of companies making inroads."

At the end of the third quarter, Intel had 81 per cent of the PC processor market, compared with 86 per cent at the end of 1997, with most of that share having been lost to AMD, Gwennap said.