. AMD Athlon processor family is the first high- performance CPU family using AMD K7 architecture. Like the Intel Pentium II processors, the first Athlons used backside 512 KB L2 cache running at half of the processor speed. The L2 cache was running even slower on faster Athlons - 2/5 and 1/3 of the of the processor speed. To accommodate the processor and the off-die cache the Athlons used Card Module package - a cartridge, visually similar to Pentium II cartridge. The Card Module package required a slot-type socket, which was called Slot A.