November 14th, 2008

AMD's Extreme Makeover: What the new roadmaps reveal

Posted by John Morris @ 1:57 pm

Categories: AMD, Desktops, Intel, PC gaming, PC graphics, Servers, multicore processors, notebooks, quad-core processors, semiconductors

Tags: Platform, Plan, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Chip, DDR3, Notebooks, Desktops, Processors, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets

Lost in all of the (inaccurate) commotion yesterday about AMD entering the netbook market were much broader changes in the company’s product plans as it struggles to regain profitability and keep up with a deep-pocketed Intel. In the past year, AMD has announced plans to spin-off manufacturing, abandoned efforts to compete for “all screens” including TVs and smartphones, and at yesterday’s analysts’ meeting, revealed major changes to its server, desktop and notebook roadmaps. The extent of these changes is clear when you compare the new plans to the presentations at AMD’s previous analysts’ meeting less than a year ago.

AMD’s “Market Opportunity”

Last year AMD executives were talking up plans to compete in everything from servers to cell phones. Processors and GPUs for servers, desktops and notebooks would still be the bulk of the business, but the acquisition of ATI gave the company the portfolio to sell more chips for digital TVs and handhelds. These new markets would increase AMD’s TAM, or total addressable market, by a combined $6.4 billion in 2007. The company has since been forced to retrench.

Last month, AMD completed the sale of its digital TV business to Broadcom, and it is seeking a buyer for its handheld division. AMD is now focused strictly on chips for servers, desktops and notebooks–including GPUs–though the total market has grown to $46.5 billion by 2009 according to yesterday’s presentation. (This implies a compound annual growth rate of about 10%–the market for commercial and consumer IT was $38.3 billion in 2007–which seems plausible.) Though it makes for a less interesting product portfolio, this is a smart strategy–AMD simply doesn’t have the resources to compete in all of these areas.

Before (late 2007)

After (now)

The Notebook Roadmap

The biggest changes are in AMD’s notebook roadmap, where executives announced six new processors slated to appear between 2009 and 2011. Last year, the big news was Shrike, the first platform that would include a processor, code-named Swift, with both a CPU and a GPU on the same silicon die. This was set to appear sometime in 2009 on the new 45nm process technology. Now these APUs (application processor units)–for both notebooks and desktops–have been pushed all the way back to 2011 and will debut at 32nm.

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November 13th, 2008

AMD's 45nm Shanghai gets official

Posted by John Morris @ 8:00 am

Categories: AMD, Servers, multicore processors, quad-core processors

Tags: AMD Opteron, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Processors, Servers, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, John Morris

AMD officially introduced its first 45nm processors today. Compared to its existing 65nm AMD Opterons, the new quad-core server processors code-named Shanghai, will offer better performance and use less power, and because they use the same socket and have the same thermal requirements, they will be available in more than 25 server systems by the end of the year, according to the company.

The new AMD Opterons range from 2.3- to 2.7GHz with an ACP, or Average CPU Power, rating of 75 watts (AMD uses different power ratings so you can’t directly compare this with the TDP rating on Intel Xeons). In the first quarter of 2009, AMD will release additional server chips with both lower and higher power ratings, as well as a new high-end desktop platform, code-named Dragon, which will include 45nm Phenom II X4 processors paired with the existing 700 series chipset and ATI Radeon 4000 series graphics.

The key improvements in the new Opterons include higher frequencies without using more power, a 4X increase in L3 cache to 6MB and support for 800MHz DDR2 memory. AMD says this will result in performance improvements of as much as 40% over the current Opterons (aka Barcelona) on certain applications such as virtualization, databases, and Java. The new chips also include several new power management features, and AMD has posted some performance test results which it claims show that clock-for-clock the new Opterons deliver better performance per watt than Intel Xeons.

Today’s announcement was expected. AMD executives have repeatedly said Shanghai was running ahead and schedule and the company is holding its annual analysts day today. In addition to its server and desktop roadmaps, AMD is expected to discuss the pending spin-off of its manufacturing operations, the Fusion processor with on-die graphics, and its strategy to address the growing netbook market.

[Read the AMD 45nm press release.]

April 21st, 2008

AMD can't get to 45nm fast enough. A 12-core package?

Posted by John Morris @ 8:10 am

Categories: AMD, Desktops, Servers

Tags: Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, John Morris

If there was a bright spot in AMD’s first quarter, it was the new PC and graphics products that have either recently shipped or are in the pipeline for 2008. Barcelona, the company’s quad-core design manufactured using a 65nm process, bombed last year. Meanwhile, Intel is minting millions of 45nm chips. So it’s no surprise that AMD is shifting to 45nm processors as quickly as possible.

During the earnings call last week, AMD executives said the 45nm processor, code-named Shanghai, was on track and would be shipping in volume in the fourth quarter. By all accounts, Shanghai is largely a “shrink” of the recently-released B3 version of Barcelona, which corrected a flaw in the original design. But Daily Tech reports that AMD has more ambitious plans for the 45nm design.

Citing AMD engineers, the site says AMD will produce a six-core version, code-named Istanbul, and then, in a reversal of its “native-quad-core” strategy of putting all cores on a single piece of silicon, offer a two-die package with a total of 12 cores. The two processors will be connected using AMD’s HyperTransport 3.0 bus.

To be clear, this platform is designed for the server and workstation market. Based on recent presentations, AMD will also release a 45nm enthusiast desktop platform, code-named Leo, later this year that will consist of triple-core and quad-core chips. Mainstream and budget desktops, as well as business systems, will continue to use platforms based on 65nm processors until sometime in 2009.

March 13th, 2008

AMD ships triple-core Phenoms

Posted by John Morris @ 7:32 am

Categories: AMD, Desktops, Servers

Tags: AMD Phenom, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Chip, Semiconductors, Network Technology, Processors, Hardware, Networking, Components, John Morris

AMD has begun shipping triple-core Phenom processors.

The company had promised the Phenom 8000 series would ship by the end of Q1, so this seems to be a sign that AMD is getting things back on track. There is no press release on its site and the new Phenoms do not yet appear on the company’s official price list, but PC World says AMD confirmed it is shipping a limited number of the new chips to major PC companies.

Dell and HP both appear to have plans to use the triple-core chip, most likely the 2.3Ghz Phenom 8600, in business desktops. And a UK-based PC company, Mesh Networks, is already offering models with a 2.1GHz Phenom 8400 and 2.3GHz Phenom 8600.

Separately, Daily Tech reported that AMD is now shipping a new version of the quad-core Opteron and Phenom chips. These are the “B3 stepping” that should eliminate the issues with the cache in the initial Barcelona design. Key server customers had been testing these chips earlier this year, so this was expected. After filling orders from computer manufacturers, the new Opteron and Phenom B3s should be available in boxed versions at retail sometime in April. (This should include the 2.2GHz Phenom 9550, 2.3GHz Phenom 9650, and 2.4GHz 9750, according to other reports.)

The new B3 versions of Opteron and Phenom chips have the letters “GH” at the end of the product number. Credit: Anandtech.

Anandtech has tested a B3 2.2Ghz Phenom versus an earlier 2.3GHz AMD Phenom 9600–with and without the workaround that fixes the cache problem but degrades performance. It concluded that “all is good with B3. . . [but] it will take a combination of higher clock speeds and very competitive pricing to really save Phenom.”

Those faster Phenoms are on the roadmap for later this year, but first AMD says it plans to ship low-power versions of the quad-core chips. As these new processors begin to ship in volume, AMD will also cut prices in early April on the older Phenom, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon and Sempron chips, according to X-bit Labs.

September 18th, 2007

Intel Penryn set to arrive early

Posted by John Spooner @ 2:37 pm

Categories: AMD, Desktops, Intel, Semiconductor architecture, Servers, dual-core processors, multicore processors, quad-core processors

Tags: Processor, Quad-core, Intel Corp., Chip, Processors, Semiconductors, Network Technology, Hardware, Components, Networking

San Francisco—It’s official. Intel will launch its 45-nanometer Penryn processors late this fall.

Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini, said today in his keynote address at Intel’s Developer Forum that the chipmaker will launch 20 of the 45nm processors on Nov. 12. The chips will be for servers and high-end desktops. Intel will follow up with additional Penryn chips, including new processors for notebooks, in early 2008.

With the admission, Otellini confirmed what has been long expected: That Intel would roll out the first of its Penryn processors ahead of schedule. The introduction will provide Intel with a quick answer to Advanced Micro Devices’ quad core Opteron, otherwise known as Barcelona on the server side and likely arrive at the same time or even before AMD’s quad-core Phenom chip.

Intel’s Penryn-based Xeon chips, such as its quad-core Harpertown processor, boast double-digit gains in performance when measured against its current quad-core Xeons. Harpertown will arrive at speeds ranging up to 3.2GHz, include 12MB of cache and feature a 1600MHz front side bus. Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, also said that Harpertown will best AMD’s 2.5GHz Barcelona processor on floating point, when comparing AMD’s recently published performance numbers with Intel’s own SPECfp benchmark testing. Gelsinger thus called the Harpertown chips the “fastest machines on the planet.”

Meanwhile, Penryn-based Core Extreme chips will be out in time for desktop enthusiasts to order one in time for the holiday season.

Until both Harpertown and 2.5GHz Barcelona products are available later this year and third parties can benchmark them, most Intel watchers are likely to take Gelsinger’s claim with a grain of salt. But the big picture, here, is that Intel continues to deliver its new products on or ahead of time.

September 5th, 2007

AMD fans the flames with Barcelona pricing

Posted by John Spooner @ 8:07 am

Categories: AMD, Desktops, Intel, Servers, Uncategorized, multicore processors, processor price cuts, quad-core processors, semiconductors

Tags: Processor, Barcelona, AMD Opteron, Pricing Strategy, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., John Spooner

The drumbeat for Barcelona is getting louder and louder. Advanced Micro Devices is widely expected to launch the new processor on Sept. 10—next Tuesday—at speeds of up to 2GHz in a number of cities across the world, including San Francisco and Barcelona, of course (link: here). AMD has confirmed that the quad-core processor has begun shipping for revenue (link: here), meaning customers are purchasing it in order to build inventories before launching products.

Now reports are saying AMD has communicated Barcelona pricing to its partners. DailyTech (link: here) is reporting that Opteron/Barcelona 2300 series processors will start at a list price of $206, while Barcelona 8300 series processors will start at $688.

If those prices seem a little low, that’s because they are. But AMD is not intentionally discounting the pricing of the Barcelona chips discussed by DailyTech. Instead, what the chipmaker is doing is leaving room for the introduction of faster and thus higher model number processors later this year and into 2008. Taking a closer look, the $206 list price of the entry-level 1.7GHz Opteron model 2344 HE, cited by DailyTech, carries a $32 or roughly 15% premium over the current entry-level dual-core Opteron HE model 2210, which lists for $174 on AMD’s site, and runs at 1.8GHz.

If the premium–say 15%, using my one example–seems small, it’s actually not. Due to competition between them, AMD and Intel often introduce new generations of processors at prices that are no more than current-generation processors. AMD did so when it introduced its second generation of dual-core Opterons. The fact that AMD will ask for more for Barcelona Opteron, and presumably its Phenom chips as well, underscores its confidence in the processors’ performance. AMD, which has been struggling financially during 2007, could use a pricing bump. Although AMD’s third-quarter Barcelona shipments are likely to be small in numbers, the chip could influence the chipmaker’s fortunes in the fourth quarter, for which it has said it aims to report a profit.