The Business of Technology: AMD Q3 2007

by Ryan Smith on 11/2/2007 1:00 PM EST
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  • loa - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link

    What many people today fail to realize is that the single most important factor driving CPU performance increases is the manufacturing process. The manufacturing process is as most people know crucial for the clock-frequency and power consumption. The main function it has is that for every new process generation the transistor budget doubles, which gives opportunity for better performance. What I know AMD has always lagged behind Intel in process technology, typically 6 to 12 months, and thus beeing 6-12 months after in performance.

    Of course they can alleviate this if the microarchicture design is superior. Sometimes AMD:s microarchitecture is better, sometime Intels, but in the long run they are probably quite even. What decides who will win is then process technology. If AMD won't be able to out get new process technologies no later than Intel, they will in the long run, on average, also lag behind Intel in terms of performance.

    So all this talk about platform and microarchitecture is important, but the real issue is the process technology.
  • yyrkoon - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    quote:

    It's admittedly painful to see AMD in their currently situation.


    Last page, last paragraph. I think the word you're looking for is 'current'.
  • magreen - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    Wrong word? LOL. The whole article was so replete with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and bad writing, I thout I was reading xbitlabs, not AT. Anand, please do something about this! It's the second article in a row!
  • magreen - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    Thought... Typing on a blackberry and can't see what I'm typing!
  • strikeback03 - Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - link

    lol, so maybe they can make the same excuse.
  • TA152H - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    The 8086 hasn't even been out for 30 years, how can AMD be building it for over 30 years? They were building it before Intel invented it??? If they can do that, surely they can survive little annoyances like financial losses.

    AMD is in a price war they are winning? Are you crazy? They are losing massive amounts of money, while Intel is making enormous profits. Who do you think can sustain the price war, the one losing money on a huge scale, or the one making it? I'll give you a hint, the company losing massive amounts of cash is not the one winning a price war. They are the big losers. Let me guess, Germany and Japan won WW II, right?

    AMD has been competitive for a long, long time, not just recently. They did make clones, sort of, and were in fact behind by Intel by a generation most of the time. But fundamentally, the computer business was a lot different 20 years ago. You still have chips like the 8086 being released in new machines, even though it was already nearly 10 years old. That was a processor TWO generations behind the 386 (186 and 286 were designed at the same time, even though the 186 was released a little sooner). More than that, AMD's processors were considerably better than what Intel made, on a generational basis. For example, Intel stopped at 12.5 MHz for the 286, AMD went up to 16 (some say 20, but I have never seen one). The AMD 386 was much better; it ran at 40 MHz (Intel stopped at 33 MHz) and used much power than Intel offerings, and was an extremely successful processor. AMD went up to 133 MHz with the 486, Intel stopped at 100 MHz and didn't even want to sell them too much.

    They were not competitive in terms of performance, but they were extremely competitive in overall value (particularly the later 386 versions), and many companies used them.

    The K5 was a pure AMD design, but the initial version was something of a disaster for them, since they disappointed Compaq with the performance and time of release. Intel retaliated against Compaq too, so it seriously bruised AMD's reputation. The later K5s were not too bad, except in floating point, but they were usurped by the NexGen designed K6, which had somewhat less IPC but could run at considerably higher clock speeds. It was a competitive processor with the Pentium II and Pentium III, especially the K6-III which ran faster on integer apps clock normalized by a good bit. It was considerably smaller, and used MUCH less power than the Pentium III. So, it was clearly superior in some ways, although suffered from poor floating point, and lower clock speeds compared to the Pentium III. The problem was more the platform than the processor. There was simply no good chipset for the Super 7. The MVP3 sucked, and the Aladdin was miserable too. I still think they should scrap the Barcelona for the mobile, and update the K6 and use it. The K7 was a terribly inefficient chip, and the Barcelona is just two iteratives removed from that. The K6, by comparison, ran circles around the K7 in terms of performance per watt. It would seem a more natural starting spot for a design. But, AMD probably lacks the resources, so they keep putting out rubbish like the Turdion. An updated K6 would be so attractive in the mobile space.
  • Mana211 - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link

    Would it be so hard to fact check before spewing idiocy?

    http://www.amd.com/us-en/Weblets/0,,7832_10554,00....">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Weblets/0,,7832_10554,00....

    1969
    AMD incorporates with $100,000; establishes headquarters in Sunnyvale, California

    1970
    AMD introduces its first proprietary device: the Am2501 logic counter

    1972
    AMD goes public

    1979
    AMD debuts on the New York Stock Exchange
    Production begins in new AMD Austin manufacturing facility

    1982
    At IBM's request, AMD signs an agreement to serve as a second source to Intel for IBM PC microprocessors

    1984
    AMD is listed in "The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America"

    Now if all you want to talk about is x86 then sure that has only been going on for 2007-1982=25 years, but ignoring the 13 years they were in business before x86 became important to them is just sticking your head in the sand.
  • Calin - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link

    The K6-3 used to run with three levels of cache (two in the processor, just like the Pentium 3, AND one in the mainboard). The cache on mainboard was 512kB or 1MB (I have a Soyo mainboard with 1MB of cache, which would be second level cache with a K6-2 - as it is now - or third level cache on a K6-3).
    My mainboard uses some ETEQ chipset - which, strangely enough, is recognized as VIA if you installed the VIA 4-in-1 drivers.

    One more thing - the K6-3 might have had better performance per watt, and better IPC than the K7 - but K6-3 (which is the part with lvl1 and lvl2 cache AND is the part to compare K7 against) was available in 400 and 450MHz versions - and not any faster. I have no idea how much could you have overclocked one, but in the end K7 reached more than 800MHz. Hmmm, I wonder if the performance of K7 at 800Mhz would be higher or lower than the performance of K6-3 at 450MHz.

    And by the way, if Intel now is making 64-bit processors for laptops, AMD would be forced (feature to feature basis) to do the same, and only K8 was 64-bit.
  • Spartan Niner - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated"

    -AMD
  • Regs - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    Financial accountants, outside agents and firms, sales, marketing, etc...they all had this forecasted before AMD bought ATi years in advance with many of the "what if" variables calculated in every forecast.

    I hope everything is going as predicted over there at AMD, and hope they can swim in the squals for just a little longer.
  • drpepper128 - Friday, November 2, 2007 - link

    In the Netburst days Intel designed their chips from the desktop and then scaled them into the server market. At one point they also used their desktop chip to create a new laptop series of processors. As it turned out the competition with AMD proved that creating a server chip to a desktop chip was superior, but AMD still couldn’t compete well in laptop market because of Intel’s superior design. It turned out that with the power to performance ratio being important Intel’s laptop design was strong in more than just the laptop market. Intel consolidated their designs into one and made it go from the laptop to the desktop and then again to the server. This method has put Intel on top. AMD on the other hand has still not changed its ways except they now have a new team working on a laptop chip. One could say they have learned from Intel, but I believe they haven’t learned enough.

    In the article it says that AMD’s biggest loss is R&D and with two teams now designing chips this is horrible. Can AMD support two teams? Actually they have three teams if you think about graphics. I believe they should combine their processor teams into a mobile design and then work their way up much like Intel. Then there is the graphics. AMD eventually wants to combine the CPU and the GPU which I believe is a brilliant idea. When this happens the consolidation should increase profits. How can AMD not consolidate? Haven’t they learned the lessons from Intel and their own plans from graphics?

    One last thing, I think AMD should also work on integrating more and more features of the chipset into their processor, not just the memory controller.
  • SigmundEXactos - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link

    10 years of AMD processors (since the K6) and 7 years of ATI (the original Radeon All-In-Wonder)....to be replaced by the end of the year with Penryn quad core & 8800GT.

    Will AMD go the way of NumberNine, Matrox, Centaur, and Cyrix?
  • Griswold - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    If you dont know what to post, dont post. Matrox is still alive an kicking, just in your typical gaming market.
  • MrEMan - Sunday, November 4, 2007 - link

    If I recall correctly the Cyrix CPUs were sold off by National Semiconductor to VIA, which for the most part is no where to be seen these days.
  • Roy2001 - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link

    If I recall correctly the Cyrix CPUs were sold off by National Semiconductor to VIA, which for the most part is no where to be seen these days.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    No, VIA's lower power CPU is actually based on IDT(Centaur)'s Winchip technology, not the crappy Cyrix architecture.
  • MrEMan - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link

    Via Ready To Buy Cyrix

    http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18804994">http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18804994

    Did the deal not materialize?
  • Roy2001 - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link

    Via Ready To Buy Cyrix ...Did the deal not materialize?
    -----------------------------------------------------------
    Via bought both Cyrix and Centaur division of IDT at bargain price mainly for legal purpose. However, winchip has "the small die size and low power-usage" (from wiki). New Via C7 CPU is more like a die/process shrinked Winchip, refer to Via's Centaur webpage: http://www.centtech.com/">http://www.centtech.com/

  • Calin - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link

    Maybe the VIA current line of processors? C7 and the like, for use in ultra low power devices
  • defter - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    Sure and now they have 0.1% marketshare:
    http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/2007102...">http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/2007102...

    I wouldn't call that "alive and kicking". Maybe "barely alive" would be a better term.
  • Griswold - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    *just not in your typical gaming market - of course.
  • phaxmohdem - Thursday, November 1, 2007 - link

    If by Cyrix you mean acquired by IBM... I kinda hope so. Maybe we can then get some of that 4.7GHz Power 6 action packed into some x86 Phenom goodness
  • MrEMan - Friday, November 2, 2007 - link

    I would prefer that AMD was acquired by either Samsung or nVidia, as I believe the main reason for AMD's current state has to do with not being able to get products manufactured at the higher clock speeds necessary to be competitive.

    I blame that on their collaboration with IBM, to whom which they are paying $$$ for manufacturing assistance, which never seems to occur. What exactly is AMD getting for their money?
  • Le Québécois - Friday, November 2, 2007 - link

    nVidia acquiring AMD? How big do you think nVidia is? I might be wrong with my estimate but I thing AMD has about 3 times more employees and is worth 2 times more than nVidia...
  • defter - Saturday, November 3, 2007 - link

    I wonder where do you get your estimate. Here are market caps:
    NVidia: ~$20B
    AMD: ~$7.3B

    NVidia could easily afford to buy AMD, however NVidia isn't silly enough to waste tons of money on it.
  • MrEMan - Sunday, November 4, 2007 - link

    It wouldn't be a silly move if nVidia comes to the conclusion that combined CPU+GPU designs are required in order to compete in the next decade (one of the supposed reasons given for why AMD purchased ATI a year ago).

    I would imagine it would be far cheaper and quicker to start with an established design vs starting from scratch, especially with something as complex as a CPU.

    If AMD continues on their current financial course, nVidia could purchase them for a bargain price.
  • Calin - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link

    NVidia buying ATI (AMD/ATI)? I don't think any anti monopoly commission would accept that
  • semo - Sunday, November 4, 2007 - link

    wikipedia says that amd has more revenue and more employees than nvidia. i don't know what that means (don't know anything about business), just stating the obvious.

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