AMD Sempron (Thoroughbred-B, Thorton, Barton) processors
Introduction: July 2004 (Thoroughbred-B), August 2004 (Thorton), September 2004 (Barton)
Overview
Sempron had been the marketing name used by AMD for several different entry level desktop CPUs, using several different technologies and CPU socket formats. The Sempron replaced the AMD Duron processor and competed against Intel's Celeron D processor.
AMD coined the name from the Latin semper, which meant "always, everyday", to denote that the Sempron was the right processor for everyday computing.
The Thoroughbred-B, Thorton and Barton cores
The first Sempron CPUs were based on the Athlon XP architecture using the Thoroughbred/Thorton core. These models were equipped with the Socket A interface, 256KB L2 cache, and 166MHz Front side bus (FSB 333). Thoroughbred cores natively had 256KB L2 cache, but Thortons had 512KB L2 cache, half of which was disabled and could sometimes be reactivated by bridge modification. Later, AMD introduced the Sempron 3000+ CPU, based on the Barton core with 512KB L2 cache. From a hardware and user standpoint, the Socket A Sempron CPUs were essentially renamed Athlon XP desktop CPUs.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.