Page "Athlon" Paragraph 3

In August 1999, AMD released the Athlon ( K7 ) processor.

Notably, the design team was led by Dirk Meyer, who had worked as a lead engineer on multiple Alpha microprocessors during his employment at DEC. Jerry Sanders had approached many of the engineering staff to work for AMD as DEC wound down their semiconductor business, and brought in a near-complete team of engineering experts.

The balance of the Athlon design team comprised AMD K5 and K6 veterans.