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EspañolADVANCED MICRO DEVICES
(Redirected from AMD)
'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.' (abbreviated 'AMD'; ) is an American manufacturer of semiconductors based in Sunnyvale, California. The company was founded in 1969 by a group of former executives from Fairchild Semiconductor, including Jerry Sanders, III, Ed Turney, John Carey, Sven Simonsen, Jack Gifford and three members from Gifford's team, Frank Botte, Jim Giles and Larry Stenger. The current chairman and CEO is Dr. Héctor Ruiz and the current president and chief operating officer is Dirk Meyer.
AMD is the world's second-largest supplier of x86 based processors and the world's third largest supplier of graphics cards and GPUs, after taking control over ATI in 2006. AMD also owns a 21% share of Spansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory. In 2006 the company ranked eighth among semiconductor manufacturers.
AMD started as a producer of logic chips in 1969, then entered the RAM chip business in 1975. That same year, it introduced a reverse-engineered clone of the Intel 8080 microprocessor. During this period, AMD also designed and produced a series of bit-slice processor elements (Am2900, Am29116, Am293xx) which were used in various minicomputer designs.
During this time, AMD attempted to embrace the perceived shift towards RISC with their own AMD 29K processor, and they attempted to diversify into graphics and audio devices as well as EPROM memory. It had some success in the mid-80s with the AMD7910 and AMD7911 "World Chip" FSK modem, one of the first multistandard devices that covered both Bell and CCITT tones at up to 1200 baud half duplex or 300/300 full duplex. While the AMD 29K survived as an embedded processor and AMD spinoff Spansion continues to make industry leading flash memory, AMD was not as successful with its other endeavors. AMD decided to switch gears and concentrate solely on Intel-compatible microprocessors and flash memory. This put them in direct competition with Intel for x86 compatible processors and their flash memory secondary markets.
AMD has a long history of litigation with former partner and x86 creator Intel. AMD-INTEL LITIGATION HISTORY [1][2]
★ In 1986 Intel broke an agreement it had with AMD to allow them to produce Intel's micro-chips for IBM; AMD filed for arbitration in 1987 and the arbitrator decided in AMD's favor in 1992. Intel disputed this, and the case ended up in the Supreme Court of California. In 1994, that court upheld the arbitrator's decision and awarded damages for breach of contract.
★ In 1990, Intel brought a copyright infringement action alleging illegal use of its 287 microcode. The case ended in 1994 with a jury finding for AMD and its right to use Intel's microcode in its microprocessors through the 486 generation.
★ In 1997, Intel filed suit against AMD and Cyrix Corp. for misuse of the term MMX. AMD and Intel settled, with AMD acknowledging MMX as a trademark owned by Intel, and with Intel granting AMD rights to market the AMD K6 MMX processor.
★ In 2005, following an investigation, the Japan Federal Trade Commission found Intel guilty on a number of violations. On June 27 2005, AMD won an antitrust suit against Intel in Japan, and on the same day, AMD filed a broad antitrust complaint against Intel in the U.S. Federal District Court in Delaware. The complaint alleges systematic use of secret rebates, special discounts, threats, and other means used by Intel to lock AMD processors out of the global market. Since the start of this action, AMD has issued subpoenas to major computer manufacturers including Dell, Microsoft, IBM, HP, Sony, and Toshiba.
AMD announced a merger with ATI Technologies on July 24, 2006. AMD had paid $4.2 billion in cash along with 57 million shares of its stock, for a total of a US$5.4 billion. The merger had completed on October 25, 2006[3] and ATI is now part of AMD.
It has been reported that in December 2006 AMD received a subpoena from the Justice Department regarding possible antitrust violations relating to the merger.[4]
Main articles: Am286, Am386, Am486, Am5x86
In February 1982, AMD signed a contract with Intel, becoming a licensed second-source manufacturer of 8086 and 8088 processors. IBM wanted to use the Intel 8088 in its IBM PC, but IBM's policy at the time was to require at least two sources for its chips. AMD later produced the Am286 under the same arrangement, but Intel canceled the agreement in 1986 and refused to convey technical details of the i386 part.
AMD challenged Intel's decision to cancel the agreement and won in arbitration, but Intel disputed this decision. A long legal dispute followed, ending in 1994 when the Supreme Court of California sided with AMD. Subsequent legal disputes centered on whether AMD had legal rights to use derivatives of Intel's microcode. In the face of uncertainty, AMD was forced to develop "clean room" versions of Intel code.
In 1991, AMD released the Am386, its clone of the Intel 386 processor. It took less than a year for the company to sell a million units. Later, the Am486 was used by a number of large OEMs, including Compaq, and proved popular. Another Am486-based product, the Am5x86, continued AMD's success as a low-price alternative. However, as product cycles shortened in the PC industry, the process of reverse engineering Intel's products became an ever less viable strategy for AMD.
Main articles: AMD K5, AMD K6, Athlon
AMD's first completely in-house x86 processor was the K5 which was launched in 1996. AMD K5 The "K" was a reference to "Kryptonite", which from comic book lore, was the only substance that could harm Superman, with a clear reference to Intel, which dominated in the market at the time, as "Superman" . Why Cool Chip Code Names Die Arik Hesseldahl
In 1996, AMD purchased NexGen specifically for the rights to their Nx series of x86-compatible processors. AMD gave the NexGen design team their own building, left them alone, and gave them time and money to rework the Nx686. The result was the K6 processor, introduced in 1997.
The K7 was AMD's seventh generation x86 processor, making its debut on June 23, 1999, under the brand name Athlon.
The K8 is a major revision of the K7 architecture, with the most notable features being the addition of a 64-bit extension to the x86 instruction set (officially called AMD64), the incorporation of an on-chip memory controller, and the implementation of an extremely high performance point-to-point interconnect called HyperTransport, as part of the Direct Connect Architecture. The technology was initially launched as the Opteron server-oriented processor.[5] Shortly thereafter it was incorporated into a product for desktop PCs, branded Athlon 64.[6]
AMD released the first dual core Opteron, an x86-based server CPU, on April 21, 2005.[7] The first desktop-based dual core processor family — the Athlon 64 X2 came a month later.[8]
In early May, AMD had abandoned the string "64" in its dual-core desktop product branding, becoming Athlon X2, while upcoming updates involves some of the improvements to the microarchitecture, and a shift of target market from mainstream desktop systems to value dual-core desktop systems, to avoid conflict of target customers between another dual-core product based on the K10 microarchitecture, the Phenom X2.
Main articles: AMD K10
The latest microprocessor architecture, also known as "AMD K10" is AMD's new microarchitecture. The "AMD K10" microarchitecture is the immediate successor to the AMD K8 microarchitecture, and is expected due middle of 2007. K10 processors will come in dual and quad-core versions with all cores on one single die.
Main articles: Bulldozer (processor), l1=Bulldozer, Bobcat (processor), l2=Bobcat
After the K10 architecture, AMD will move to a modular design methodology named "''M-SPACE''", where two new processor cores, codenamed "''Bulldozer''" and "''Bobcat''" will be released in the 2009 timeframe. While very little preliminary information exists even in AMD's Technology Analyst Day 2007, both cores are to be built from the ground up. The ''Bulldozer'' core focused on 10 Watts to 100 Watts products, with optimizations for performance-per-watt ratios and HPC applications and includes newly announced SSE5 instructions, while the ''Bobcat'' core will focus on 1 Watt to 10 Watts products, given that the core is a simplified x86 core to reduce power draw. Both of the cores will be able to corporate with full DirectX compatible GPU core(s) under the ''Fusion'' label, or as standalone products as a general purpose CPU.
Main articles: AMD Fusion
After the merger between AMD and ATI, an initiative codenamed ''Fusion'' was announced that merges a CPU and GPU on one chip, including a minimum 16 lane PCI Express link to accommodate external PCI Express peripherals, thereby eliminating the requirement of a northbridge chip completely from the motherboard. It is expected to be released in 2009, one of the fruits of Fusion is the codenamed ''Falcon'' family, implementing the codenamed ''Bulldozer'' core, aimed for a 10-100 W products, and further products will incorporate codenamed ''Bobcat'' core, focusing on sub-10 W markets, targeting UMPC products and small handheld devices which currently use ARM processors. Processors from this project, will also be deployed in notebooks, with quad-core processors planned for release in 2009.
Main articles: AMD Live!
AMD LIVE! is a platform marketing initiative focusing the consumer electronics segment, with a recently announced Active TV initiative for streaming Internet videos from web video services such as YouTube, into AMD Live! PC as well as connected digital TVs, together with a scheme for an ecosystem of certified peripherals for the ease of customers to identify peripherals for AMD Live! systems for digital home experience, called "AMD Live! Ready".[9]
Main articles: AMD Quad FX platform
The AMD Quad FX platform, being an extreme enthusiast platform, allows two processors connect through HyperTransport, which is a similar setup to dual-processor (2P) servers, excluding the use of buffered memory/registered memory DIMM modules, and a server motherboard, the current setup includes two Athlon 64 FX FX-70 series processors and a special motherboard. AMD pushed the platform for the surging demands for what AMD calls "megatasking" for true enthusiasts [10], the ability to do more tasks on one single system. The platform refreshes with the introduction of Phenom FX processors and the next-generation RD790 chipset, codenamed "''FASN8''".
AMD's virtualization extension to the 64-bit x86 architecture is named ''AMD Virtualization'', also known by the abbreviation ''AMD-V'', and is sometimes referred to by the code name "Pacifica". AMD processors using Socket AM2, Socket S1, and Socket F include AMD Virtualization support. AMD Virtualization is also supported by release two (8200, 2200 and 1200 series) of the Opteron processors.
AMD also endorsed the development of I/O virtualization technology, currently the "AMD I/O Virtualization Technology" (also known as IOMMU) specification published using HyperTransport architecture by AMD had updated to version 1.2,[11][12] which the first finalized (version 1.0) specification was published prior to Intel's .
★ AMD Trinity, provides support for virtualization, security and management. Key features include AMD-V technology, codenamed ''Presidio'' trusted computing platform technology, I/O Virtualization and Open Management Partition.[13]
★ AMD Raiden, future clients similar to the Jack PC[14] to be connected through network to a blade server for central management, to reduce client form factor sizes with AMD Trinity features.
★ Torrenza, co-processors support through interconnects such as HyperTransport as PCI Express (though more focus was at HyperTransport enabled co-processors), also opening processor socket architecture to other manufacturers, Sun and IBM are among the supporting consortium, with rumoured POWER7 processors would be socket-compatible to future Opteron processors. The move made rival Intel responded with the open of Front Side Bus (FSB) architecture as well as Geneseo,[15] a collaboration project with IBM for co-processors connected through PCI Express. Note that AMD positioned Torrenza for commercial segment, whilst Intel positioned Geneseo for all segments including consumer desktop segments .
★ Various certified systems programs and platforms: AMD Commercial Stable Image Platform (CSIP), together with AMD Validated Server program, AMD True Server Solutions, AMD Thermally Tested Barebones Platforms and AMD Validated Server Program, providing certified systems for business from AMD.
Starting in 2007, AMD, following Intel, began using codenames for its desktop platforms. The platforms, unlike Intel's approach, will refresh every year, putting focus on platform specialization. The platform includes components as AMD processors, chipsets, ATI graphics and other features, but continued to the open platform approach, and welcome components from other vendors such as VIA, SiS, and NVIDIA, as well as wireless product vendors.
AMD will also release a system controls utility in the future, providing easy system monitoring, allowing adjustments to voltages and clocks, as well as overall platform management, including CPU, chipset and graphics. The features are expected to be similar to the control panel in NVIDIA ForceWare series drivers.
Main articles: Alchemy (processor)
In February 2002, AMD acquired Alchemy Semiconductor and continued its line of processor in MIPS architecture processors, targets the hand-held and Portable media player markets. On 13 June, 2006, AMD officially announced that the Alchemy processor line was transferred to Raza Microelectronics Inc. AMD Alchemy™ processor product line acquired by Raza Microelectronics
Main articles: Geode (processor)#AMD Geode, l1=Geode (processor)
In August 2003, AMD also purchased the Geode business which was originally the Cyrix MediaGX from National Semiconductor to augment its existing line of embedded x86 processor products. During the second quarter of 2004, it launched new low-power Geode NX processors based on the K7 Thoroughbred architecture with speeds of fanless processors 667 MHz and 1 GHz, and 1.4 GHz processor with fan, of TDP 25 W.
Main articles: Spansion
While less visible to the general public than its CPU business, AMD is also a global leader in flash memory. In 1993, AMD established a 50-50 partnership with Fujitsu called FASL, and merged into a new company called FASL LLC in 2003. The joint venture firm went public under ticker symbol SPSN in December 2005, with AMD shares drop to 37%.
AMD no longer directly participates in the Flash memory devices market now as AMD entered into a non-competition agreement, as of December 21, 2005, with Fujitsu and Spansion, pursuant to which it agreed not to directly or indirectly engage in a business that manufactures or supplies standalone semiconductor devices (including single chip, multiple chip or system devices) containing only Flash memory.[16]
Main articles: AMD mobile platform
AMD started a platform in 2003 aimed at mobile computing, but with fewer advertisements and promotional schemes, very little was known about the platform. The platform used mobile Athlon 64 or mobile Sempron processors.
As part of the "Better by design" initiative, the open mobile platform, announced February 2007 with announcement of general availability in May 2007, comes together with 65 nm fabrication process Turion 64 X2, and is consists of three major components, as AMD processor, graphics from either NVIDIA or ATI Technologies which also includes integrated graphics (IGP), and wireless connectivity solutions from Atheros, Broadcom, Marvell, Qualcomm or Realtek.
Upcoming platforms were being discussed with ''Puma'' platform and ''Griffin'' processor to be released in 2008. AMD planned quad-core processors with 3D graphics capcabilities (''Fusion'') to be launched in 2009 with the ''Eagle'' platform.
★ 50x15, digital inclusion, with targeted 50% of world population to be connected through Internet via affordable computers by the year of 2015.
★ The Green Grid,[17] founded by AMD together with other founders, such as IBM, Sun and Microsoft, to seek lower power consumption for grids. Intel was notably absent from the consortium when it was founded, and finally joined in early 2007 .
★ Codenamed ''SIMFIRE'' interoperability testing tool for the Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) open architecture.
★ Extensions for software parallelism (xSP), aimed at speeding up programs to enable multi-threaded and multi-core processing, announced in Technology Analyst Day 2007. One of the initiative being discussed since August 2007 is the Light Weight Profiling (LWP), providing internal hardware monitor with runtimes, to observe information about executing process and help the re-design of software to be optimized with multi-core and even multi-threaded programs.
After the takeover of ATI, AMD restructured some of the product lineups from both companies. Some products were being rebranded under the AMD brand, including the Imageon for mobile phones and handheld devices, the Xilleon for consumer electronics (digital TV sets), ATI chipsets (to AMD chipsets) for AMD processors platform and AMD Stream Processor from previously FireStream. Some others retained the use of ATI branding, including the Radeon line of graphics, and chipsets for Intel processors.
AMD produces their own processors in wholly owned semiconductor Fabrication Plants, called "FABs". AMD uses a "FAB x" naming convention for their production facilities, where "x" is the number
of years that have passed between the founding of AMD and the date the FAB opened.
At their Fabrication facilities, AMD utilizes a system called Automated Precision Manufacturing](APM). APM is a collection of manufacturing technologies AMD has developed over their history (many of which AMD holds patents for), which are designed to enhance the microprocessor production process, primarily in terms of yield. Much of APM is related to removing the "human equation" from the manufacturing process by isolating in-process wafers in containers that are only exposed to clean room facilities. AMD claims that the technologies that combine to make APM are unique to the industry and make it the foremost semiconductor manufacturer in the world - a fact which is lent some credence by their current agreement with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing based in Singapore. India's first Fab City, a silicon chip manufacturing facility, being setup with an investment of $3 billion by the AMD-SemIndia consortium.
AMD currently has a production agreement with foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing which allows Chartered access to AMD Automated Precision Manufacturing (APM) process technology, in exchange for which Chartered will act as extra production capacity for AMD.
AMD, through the acquisition of ATI, also has manufacturing agreements with TSMC to produce ATI's lines of graphics and chipset processors. It is currently unclear how much of ATI's manufacturing needs will be moved to AMD's own fabs and how much will remain outsourced to other foundry companies, but AMD has announced plans for future processors to be outsourced to TSMC, while coincidently TSMC had announced it had received orders to fabricate x86 processors.
AMD's main microprocessor manufacturing and design facilities are located in Dresden, Germany. Highly integrated microprocessors are manufactured in Taiwan made by third-party manufacturers under strict license from AMD. Between 2003 and 2005, they constructed a second manufacturing (300 mm 90 nm process SOI) plant nearby in order to increase the number of chips they can produce, thus becoming more competitive with Intel. The new plant has been named "Fab 36", in recognition of AMD's 36 years of operation, and is expected to reach full production in mid-2007. AMD recently announced that they have just completed the conversion of Fab 36 from 90 nm to 65 nm and have now shifted their focus to the 45 nm conversion.[18]
AMD has planned expansions in their production capacity. In addition to the completion of Fab 36 in Dresden, AMD is planning to upgrade Fab 30 (adjacent to Fab 36) in Dresden from 200 mm 90 nm process SOI to a 300 mm 65 nm process SOI facility and rename it Fab 38. Originally, Fab 30 was supposed to begin 65 nm production in late 2007 but AMD recently announced they would slow down the upgrade to reduce capital expenditures.[19]
Furthermore, AMD announced plans to open a new $3.2 billion facility at the Luther Park Technology Campus in Stillwater, New York. This new Fab 4x will likely produce 300 mm 32 nm process SOI production betweenyears 2009 to 2010. Some speculation exists as to whether this facility will use high-K/metal technology that AMD obtained from IBM.[20]
In June 2006, Chartered Semiconductor began shipments of manufactured AMD microprocessors, many of which are shipped from Singapore to Taiwanese and Chinese OEM/ODM manufacturing companies that build computers for companies like Lenovo and Dell.[21]
AMD maintains major design facilities in Fort Collins, CO, Sunnyvale, CA, Austin, TX, Boxborough, MA, and Bangalore, India.
AMD utilizes strategic industry partnerships to further its business interests as well as to tackle Intel's dominance and resources. Notably NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset generated substantial revenues for NVIDIA as a popular enthusiast part.
A partnership between AMD and Alpha Processor Inc. developed HyperTransport, a point-to-point interconnect standard which was turned over to an industry standards body for finalization. It is now used in modern AMD processor compatible motherboards.
AMD also formed a strategic partnership with IBM, under which AMD gained silicon on insulator (SOI) manufacturing technology, and detailed advice on 90 nm implementation, the partnership was announced by AMD to be extended to 2011 for 32 nm and 22 nm fabrication related technologies[22]. Further, AMD is loosely partnered with end-user companies such as HP, Compaq, ASUS, Alienware, Acer, Evesham Technology, Dell and several others to facilitate processor distribution and sales.
On May 18 2006, Dell announced that it would roll out new servers based on AMD's Opteron chips by years end, thus ending an exclusive relationship with Intel. Dell also began offering AMD Athlon X2 chips in their desktop line-up in September 2006.
AMD is also a sponsor of the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro F1 Team since 2002 and the Discovery Channel team since 2004.
Although AMD has frequently stated the inability of providing information about upcoming products and plans, AMD holds Technology Analyst Days (which often shorten as simply "Analyst Day") annually or semi-annually to reveal and explain key future technologies, as well as official technology roadmaps. Technologies announced in the 2006 analyst days include the several commercial initiatives including Torrenza, and Fusion. Besides Analyst Days, AMD also had held several events for different products, including upcoming enthusiast products, and mobile products for partners and selected participants from time to time.
AMD also publishes printed media. Publications includes the discontinued AMDEdge and AMD Accelerate. The AMD Accelerate magazine, published through Ziff Davis Media, puts focus on SME and business applications while AMD Edge focused on overall technologies from AMD. AMD also has electronic newsletters to promote server Opteron processors and related business solutions.
★ ATI Technologies
★ Intel Corporation
★ NexGen
★ NVIDIA
★ Spansion
★ Jerry Sanders, III
★ Ed Turney
★ Dirk Meyer
★ Héctor Ruiz
★ List of AMD microprocessors
★ List of AMD CPU slots and sockets
★ List of AMD Athlon microprocessors
★ List of AMD Athlon XP microprocessors
★ List of AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors
★ List of AMD Duron microprocessors
★ List of AMD Opteron microprocessors
★ List of AMD Sempron microprocessors
★ List of AMD Turion microprocessors
★ Comparison of AMD Chipsets
★ Comparison of ATI Graphics Processing Units
★ Comparison of ATI Chipsets
★ List of Intel chipsets
★ Comparison of NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units
★ Comparison of AMD Processors
★ Comparison of Intel processors
★ AMD Stream Processor
★ Imageon
★ Xilleon
★ 3DNow! and 3DNow! Professional
★ Cool'n'Quiet
★ PowerNow!
★ Torrenza
★ HyperTransport
1. Summary U.S. antitrust complaint against Intel
2. Full text of U.S. antitrust complaint against Intel
3. AMD Completes ATI Acquisition and Creates Processing Powerhouse
4.
5. Scott Wasson. "Workstation platforms compared", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2003-09-15, Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
6. Scott Wasson. "AMD's Athlon 64 processor", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2003-09-23. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
7. Scott Wasson. "AMD's dual-core Opteron processors", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2005-04-21. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
8. Scott Wasson. "AMD's Athlon 64 X2 processors", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2005-05-09. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
9. Official Press Release (AMD Live! Ready and Active TV initiative)
10. Official Press Release (AMD Quad FX Platform with Dual Socket Direct Connect Architecture Redefines High-End Computing for Megatasking Enthusiasts)
11. AMD press release
12. AMD IOMMU specification 1.2
13. AMD Analyst Day presentation, page 24, retrieved July 14, 2007
14. Jack PC page
15. Intel Geneseo press release
16. Press release
17. The Green Grid website
18. Rick C. Hodgin. "Wrap-up: AMD outlines a bright future at Technology Analyst Day", ''tgdaily.com'', Tigervision Media, 2007-07-26, pp.4. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
19. Anton Shilov. "AMD’s Fab 36 Fully Converted to 65 nm Process Technology AMD. AMD Is Happy with 65 nm Yields, Including "Barcelona"", ''xbitlabs.com'', X-bit labs, 2007-07-21. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
20. John G. Spooner. "AMD to Build Factory in New York", ''eweek.com'', Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc., 2006-06-23. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
21. Anton Shilov. "AMD Begins Revenue Shipments of Processors Produced by Chartered. AMD Initiates Shipments of Chartered-Built CPUs", ''xbitlabs.com'', X-bit labs, 2006-07-13. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
22. AMD Analyst Day June 2006 Presentation, slide 10
★ AMD: 30 Years of Pursuing the Leader
★ AMD CPU Chart
★ Cpu-collection.de AMD processor images and descriptions
★ AMD goes dual-core
★ Why AMD-MHz don't equal Intel-MHz
★ AMD's most recent conference call transcripts
★ A look at AMD's manufacturing process technologies
★ AMD Corporate Website
★ AMD Live!
★ Near term AMD interactive product outlook
★ AMD Powerpoint documents on the specification
★ AMD Previews 'Pacifica' Virtualization Technology
★ AMD Preps 'Pacifica' Virtualization Technology
AMD headquarters in Sunnyvale
'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.' (abbreviated 'AMD'; ) is an American manufacturer of semiconductors based in Sunnyvale, California. The company was founded in 1969 by a group of former executives from Fairchild Semiconductor, including Jerry Sanders, III, Ed Turney, John Carey, Sven Simonsen, Jack Gifford and three members from Gifford's team, Frank Botte, Jim Giles and Larry Stenger. The current chairman and CEO is Dr. Héctor Ruiz and the current president and chief operating officer is Dirk Meyer.
AMD is the world's second-largest supplier of x86 based processors and the world's third largest supplier of graphics cards and GPUs, after taking control over ATI in 2006. AMD also owns a 21% share of Spansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory. In 2006 the company ranked eighth among semiconductor manufacturers.
General history
Early AMD 8080 Processor (AMD AM9080ADC / C8080A), 1977
AMD started as a producer of logic chips in 1969, then entered the RAM chip business in 1975. That same year, it introduced a reverse-engineered clone of the Intel 8080 microprocessor. During this period, AMD also designed and produced a series of bit-slice processor elements (Am2900, Am29116, Am293xx) which were used in various minicomputer designs.
During this time, AMD attempted to embrace the perceived shift towards RISC with their own AMD 29K processor, and they attempted to diversify into graphics and audio devices as well as EPROM memory. It had some success in the mid-80s with the AMD7910 and AMD7911 "World Chip" FSK modem, one of the first multistandard devices that covered both Bell and CCITT tones at up to 1200 baud half duplex or 300/300 full duplex. While the AMD 29K survived as an embedded processor and AMD spinoff Spansion continues to make industry leading flash memory, AMD was not as successful with its other endeavors. AMD decided to switch gears and concentrate solely on Intel-compatible microprocessors and flash memory. This put them in direct competition with Intel for x86 compatible processors and their flash memory secondary markets.
Litigation with Intel
AMD has a long history of litigation with former partner and x86 creator Intel. AMD-INTEL LITIGATION HISTORY [1][2]
★ In 1986 Intel broke an agreement it had with AMD to allow them to produce Intel's micro-chips for IBM; AMD filed for arbitration in 1987 and the arbitrator decided in AMD's favor in 1992. Intel disputed this, and the case ended up in the Supreme Court of California. In 1994, that court upheld the arbitrator's decision and awarded damages for breach of contract.
★ In 1990, Intel brought a copyright infringement action alleging illegal use of its 287 microcode. The case ended in 1994 with a jury finding for AMD and its right to use Intel's microcode in its microprocessors through the 486 generation.
★ In 1997, Intel filed suit against AMD and Cyrix Corp. for misuse of the term MMX. AMD and Intel settled, with AMD acknowledging MMX as a trademark owned by Intel, and with Intel granting AMD rights to market the AMD K6 MMX processor.
★ In 2005, following an investigation, the Japan Federal Trade Commission found Intel guilty on a number of violations. On June 27 2005, AMD won an antitrust suit against Intel in Japan, and on the same day, AMD filed a broad antitrust complaint against Intel in the U.S. Federal District Court in Delaware. The complaint alleges systematic use of secret rebates, special discounts, threats, and other means used by Intel to lock AMD processors out of the global market. Since the start of this action, AMD has issued subpoenas to major computer manufacturers including Dell, Microsoft, IBM, HP, Sony, and Toshiba.
Merger with ATI
AMD announced a merger with ATI Technologies on July 24, 2006. AMD had paid $4.2 billion in cash along with 57 million shares of its stock, for a total of a US$5.4 billion. The merger had completed on October 25, 2006[3] and ATI is now part of AMD.
It has been reported that in December 2006 AMD received a subpoena from the Justice Department regarding possible antitrust violations relating to the merger.[4]
AMD x86 processors
Discontinued
8086, Am286, Am386, Am486, Am5x86
Main articles: Am286, Am386, Am486, Am5x86
AMD 80286 1982
In February 1982, AMD signed a contract with Intel, becoming a licensed second-source manufacturer of 8086 and 8088 processors. IBM wanted to use the Intel 8088 in its IBM PC, but IBM's policy at the time was to require at least two sources for its chips. AMD later produced the Am286 under the same arrangement, but Intel canceled the agreement in 1986 and refused to convey technical details of the i386 part.
AMD challenged Intel's decision to cancel the agreement and won in arbitration, but Intel disputed this decision. A long legal dispute followed, ending in 1994 when the Supreme Court of California sided with AMD. Subsequent legal disputes centered on whether AMD had legal rights to use derivatives of Intel's microcode. In the face of uncertainty, AMD was forced to develop "clean room" versions of Intel code.
In 1991, AMD released the Am386, its clone of the Intel 386 processor. It took less than a year for the company to sell a million units. Later, the Am486 was used by a number of large OEMs, including Compaq, and proved popular. Another Am486-based product, the Am5x86, continued AMD's success as a low-price alternative. However, as product cycles shortened in the PC industry, the process of reverse engineering Intel's products became an ever less viable strategy for AMD.
K5, K6, Athlon (K7)
Main articles: AMD K5, AMD K6, Athlon
AMD's first completely in-house x86 processor was the K5 which was launched in 1996. AMD K5 The "K" was a reference to "Kryptonite", which from comic book lore, was the only substance that could harm Superman, with a clear reference to Intel, which dominated in the market at the time, as "Superman" . Why Cool Chip Code Names Die Arik Hesseldahl
In 1996, AMD purchased NexGen specifically for the rights to their Nx series of x86-compatible processors. AMD gave the NexGen design team their own building, left them alone, and gave them time and money to rework the Nx686. The result was the K6 processor, introduced in 1997.
The K7 was AMD's seventh generation x86 processor, making its debut on June 23, 1999, under the brand name Athlon.
Current and future
Athlon 64 (K8)
The K8 is a major revision of the K7 architecture, with the most notable features being the addition of a 64-bit extension to the x86 instruction set (officially called AMD64), the incorporation of an on-chip memory controller, and the implementation of an extremely high performance point-to-point interconnect called HyperTransport, as part of the Direct Connect Architecture. The technology was initially launched as the Opteron server-oriented processor.[5] Shortly thereafter it was incorporated into a product for desktop PCs, branded Athlon 64.[6]
Dual-core Athlon 64 X2
AMD released the first dual core Opteron, an x86-based server CPU, on April 21, 2005.[7] The first desktop-based dual core processor family — the Athlon 64 X2 came a month later.[8]
Quad-core "Barcelona" die-shot
In early May, AMD had abandoned the string "64" in its dual-core desktop product branding, becoming Athlon X2, while upcoming updates involves some of the improvements to the microarchitecture, and a shift of target market from mainstream desktop systems to value dual-core desktop systems, to avoid conflict of target customers between another dual-core product based on the K10 microarchitecture, the Phenom X2.
K10
Main articles: AMD K10
The latest microprocessor architecture, also known as "AMD K10" is AMD's new microarchitecture. The "AMD K10" microarchitecture is the immediate successor to the AMD K8 microarchitecture, and is expected due middle of 2007. K10 processors will come in dual and quad-core versions with all cores on one single die.
''Bulldozer'' and ''Bobcat''
Main articles: Bulldozer (processor), l1=Bulldozer, Bobcat (processor), l2=Bobcat
After the K10 architecture, AMD will move to a modular design methodology named "''M-SPACE''", where two new processor cores, codenamed "''Bulldozer''" and "''Bobcat''" will be released in the 2009 timeframe. While very little preliminary information exists even in AMD's Technology Analyst Day 2007, both cores are to be built from the ground up. The ''Bulldozer'' core focused on 10 Watts to 100 Watts products, with optimizations for performance-per-watt ratios and HPC applications and includes newly announced SSE5 instructions, while the ''Bobcat'' core will focus on 1 Watt to 10 Watts products, given that the core is a simplified x86 core to reduce power draw. Both of the cores will be able to corporate with full DirectX compatible GPU core(s) under the ''Fusion'' label, or as standalone products as a general purpose CPU.
AMD Fusion
Main articles: AMD Fusion
After the merger between AMD and ATI, an initiative codenamed ''Fusion'' was announced that merges a CPU and GPU on one chip, including a minimum 16 lane PCI Express link to accommodate external PCI Express peripherals, thereby eliminating the requirement of a northbridge chip completely from the motherboard. It is expected to be released in 2009, one of the fruits of Fusion is the codenamed ''Falcon'' family, implementing the codenamed ''Bulldozer'' core, aimed for a 10-100 W products, and further products will incorporate codenamed ''Bobcat'' core, focusing on sub-10 W markets, targeting UMPC products and small handheld devices which currently use ARM processors. Processors from this project, will also be deployed in notebooks, with quad-core processors planned for release in 2009.
Other platforms and technologies
AMD Live!
Main articles: AMD Live!
AMD LIVE! is a platform marketing initiative focusing the consumer electronics segment, with a recently announced Active TV initiative for streaming Internet videos from web video services such as YouTube, into AMD Live! PC as well as connected digital TVs, together with a scheme for an ecosystem of certified peripherals for the ease of customers to identify peripherals for AMD Live! systems for digital home experience, called "AMD Live! Ready".[9]
AMD Quad FX platform
Main articles: AMD Quad FX platform
The AMD Quad FX platform, being an extreme enthusiast platform, allows two processors connect through HyperTransport, which is a similar setup to dual-processor (2P) servers, excluding the use of buffered memory/registered memory DIMM modules, and a server motherboard, the current setup includes two Athlon 64 FX FX-70 series processors and a special motherboard. AMD pushed the platform for the surging demands for what AMD calls "megatasking" for true enthusiasts [10], the ability to do more tasks on one single system. The platform refreshes with the introduction of Phenom FX processors and the next-generation RD790 chipset, codenamed "''FASN8''".
Commercial platform
Virtualization
AMD's virtualization extension to the 64-bit x86 architecture is named ''AMD Virtualization'', also known by the abbreviation ''AMD-V'', and is sometimes referred to by the code name "Pacifica". AMD processors using Socket AM2, Socket S1, and Socket F include AMD Virtualization support. AMD Virtualization is also supported by release two (8200, 2200 and 1200 series) of the Opteron processors.
AMD also endorsed the development of I/O virtualization technology, currently the "AMD I/O Virtualization Technology" (also known as IOMMU) specification published using HyperTransport architecture by AMD had updated to version 1.2,[11][12] which the first finalized (version 1.0) specification was published prior to Intel's .
Commercial initiatives
★ AMD Trinity, provides support for virtualization, security and management. Key features include AMD-V technology, codenamed ''Presidio'' trusted computing platform technology, I/O Virtualization and Open Management Partition.[13]
★ AMD Raiden, future clients similar to the Jack PC[14] to be connected through network to a blade server for central management, to reduce client form factor sizes with AMD Trinity features.
★ Torrenza, co-processors support through interconnects such as HyperTransport as PCI Express (though more focus was at HyperTransport enabled co-processors), also opening processor socket architecture to other manufacturers, Sun and IBM are among the supporting consortium, with rumoured POWER7 processors would be socket-compatible to future Opteron processors. The move made rival Intel responded with the open of Front Side Bus (FSB) architecture as well as Geneseo,[15] a collaboration project with IBM for co-processors connected through PCI Express. Note that AMD positioned Torrenza for commercial segment, whilst Intel positioned Geneseo for all segments including consumer desktop segments .
★ Various certified systems programs and platforms: AMD Commercial Stable Image Platform (CSIP), together with AMD Validated Server program, AMD True Server Solutions, AMD Thermally Tested Barebones Platforms and AMD Validated Server Program, providing certified systems for business from AMD.
Desktop platforms
Starting in 2007, AMD, following Intel, began using codenames for its desktop platforms. The platforms, unlike Intel's approach, will refresh every year, putting focus on platform specialization. The platform includes components as AMD processors, chipsets, ATI graphics and other features, but continued to the open platform approach, and welcome components from other vendors such as VIA, SiS, and NVIDIA, as well as wireless product vendors.
AMD will also release a system controls utility in the future, providing easy system monitoring, allowing adjustments to voltages and clocks, as well as overall platform management, including CPU, chipset and graphics. The features are expected to be similar to the control panel in NVIDIA ForceWare series drivers.
Embedded systems
Alchemy processors
Main articles: Alchemy (processor)
In February 2002, AMD acquired Alchemy Semiconductor and continued its line of processor in MIPS architecture processors, targets the hand-held and Portable media player markets. On 13 June, 2006, AMD officially announced that the Alchemy processor line was transferred to Raza Microelectronics Inc. AMD Alchemy™ processor product line acquired by Raza Microelectronics
Geode processors
Main articles: Geode (processor)#AMD Geode, l1=Geode (processor)
In August 2003, AMD also purchased the Geode business which was originally the Cyrix MediaGX from National Semiconductor to augment its existing line of embedded x86 processor products. During the second quarter of 2004, it launched new low-power Geode NX processors based on the K7 Thoroughbred architecture with speeds of fanless processors 667 MHz and 1 GHz, and 1.4 GHz processor with fan, of TDP 25 W.
Flash technology
Main articles: Spansion
While less visible to the general public than its CPU business, AMD is also a global leader in flash memory. In 1993, AMD established a 50-50 partnership with Fujitsu called FASL, and merged into a new company called FASL LLC in 2003. The joint venture firm went public under ticker symbol SPSN in December 2005, with AMD shares drop to 37%.
AMD no longer directly participates in the Flash memory devices market now as AMD entered into a non-competition agreement, as of December 21, 2005, with Fujitsu and Spansion, pursuant to which it agreed not to directly or indirectly engage in a business that manufactures or supplies standalone semiconductor devices (including single chip, multiple chip or system devices) containing only Flash memory.[16]
Mobile platforms
Main articles: AMD mobile platform
AMD started a platform in 2003 aimed at mobile computing, but with fewer advertisements and promotional schemes, very little was known about the platform. The platform used mobile Athlon 64 or mobile Sempron processors.
As part of the "Better by design" initiative, the open mobile platform, announced February 2007 with announcement of general availability in May 2007, comes together with 65 nm fabrication process Turion 64 X2, and is consists of three major components, as AMD processor, graphics from either NVIDIA or ATI Technologies which also includes integrated graphics (IGP), and wireless connectivity solutions from Atheros, Broadcom, Marvell, Qualcomm or Realtek.
Upcoming platforms were being discussed with ''Puma'' platform and ''Griffin'' processor to be released in 2008. AMD planned quad-core processors with 3D graphics capcabilities (''Fusion'') to be launched in 2009 with the ''Eagle'' platform.
Other initiatives
★ 50x15, digital inclusion, with targeted 50% of world population to be connected through Internet via affordable computers by the year of 2015.
★ The Green Grid,[17] founded by AMD together with other founders, such as IBM, Sun and Microsoft, to seek lower power consumption for grids. Intel was notably absent from the consortium when it was founded, and finally joined in early 2007 .
★ Codenamed ''SIMFIRE'' interoperability testing tool for the Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) open architecture.
Software
★ Extensions for software parallelism (xSP), aimed at speeding up programs to enable multi-threaded and multi-core processing, announced in Technology Analyst Day 2007. One of the initiative being discussed since August 2007 is the Light Weight Profiling (LWP), providing internal hardware monitor with runtimes, to observe information about executing process and help the re-design of software to be optimized with multi-core and even multi-threaded programs.
Technologies from ATI
After the takeover of ATI, AMD restructured some of the product lineups from both companies. Some products were being rebranded under the AMD brand, including the Imageon for mobile phones and handheld devices, the Xilleon for consumer electronics (digital TV sets), ATI chipsets (to AMD chipsets) for AMD processors platform and AMD Stream Processor from previously FireStream. Some others retained the use of ATI branding, including the Radeon line of graphics, and chipsets for Intel processors.
Production and fabrication
AMD produces their own processors in wholly owned semiconductor Fabrication Plants, called "FABs". AMD uses a "FAB x" naming convention for their production facilities, where "x" is the number
of years that have passed between the founding of AMD and the date the FAB opened.
At their Fabrication facilities, AMD utilizes a system called Automated Precision Manufacturing](APM). APM is a collection of manufacturing technologies AMD has developed over their history (many of which AMD holds patents for), which are designed to enhance the microprocessor production process, primarily in terms of yield. Much of APM is related to removing the "human equation" from the manufacturing process by isolating in-process wafers in containers that are only exposed to clean room facilities. AMD claims that the technologies that combine to make APM are unique to the industry and make it the foremost semiconductor manufacturer in the world - a fact which is lent some credence by their current agreement with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing based in Singapore. India's first Fab City, a silicon chip manufacturing facility, being setup with an investment of $3 billion by the AMD-SemIndia consortium.
AMD currently has a production agreement with foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing which allows Chartered access to AMD Automated Precision Manufacturing (APM) process technology, in exchange for which Chartered will act as extra production capacity for AMD.
AMD, through the acquisition of ATI, also has manufacturing agreements with TSMC to produce ATI's lines of graphics and chipset processors. It is currently unclear how much of ATI's manufacturing needs will be moved to AMD's own fabs and how much will remain outsourced to other foundry companies, but AMD has announced plans for future processors to be outsourced to TSMC, while coincidently TSMC had announced it had received orders to fabricate x86 processors.
Current production facilities
AMD's main microprocessor manufacturing and design facilities are located in Dresden, Germany. Highly integrated microprocessors are manufactured in Taiwan made by third-party manufacturers under strict license from AMD. Between 2003 and 2005, they constructed a second manufacturing (300 mm 90 nm process SOI) plant nearby in order to increase the number of chips they can produce, thus becoming more competitive with Intel. The new plant has been named "Fab 36", in recognition of AMD's 36 years of operation, and is expected to reach full production in mid-2007. AMD recently announced that they have just completed the conversion of Fab 36 from 90 nm to 65 nm and have now shifted their focus to the 45 nm conversion.[18]
AMD has planned expansions in their production capacity. In addition to the completion of Fab 36 in Dresden, AMD is planning to upgrade Fab 30 (adjacent to Fab 36) in Dresden from 200 mm 90 nm process SOI to a 300 mm 65 nm process SOI facility and rename it Fab 38. Originally, Fab 30 was supposed to begin 65 nm production in late 2007 but AMD recently announced they would slow down the upgrade to reduce capital expenditures.[19]
Furthermore, AMD announced plans to open a new $3.2 billion facility at the Luther Park Technology Campus in Stillwater, New York. This new Fab 4x will likely produce 300 mm 32 nm process SOI production betweenyears 2009 to 2010. Some speculation exists as to whether this facility will use high-K/metal technology that AMD obtained from IBM.[20]
In June 2006, Chartered Semiconductor began shipments of manufactured AMD microprocessors, many of which are shipped from Singapore to Taiwanese and Chinese OEM/ODM manufacturing companies that build computers for companies like Lenovo and Dell.[21]
AMD maintains major design facilities in Fort Collins, CO, Sunnyvale, CA, Austin, TX, Boxborough, MA, and Bangalore, India.
Partnerships
AMD utilizes strategic industry partnerships to further its business interests as well as to tackle Intel's dominance and resources. Notably NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset generated substantial revenues for NVIDIA as a popular enthusiast part.
A partnership between AMD and Alpha Processor Inc. developed HyperTransport, a point-to-point interconnect standard which was turned over to an industry standards body for finalization. It is now used in modern AMD processor compatible motherboards.
AMD also formed a strategic partnership with IBM, under which AMD gained silicon on insulator (SOI) manufacturing technology, and detailed advice on 90 nm implementation, the partnership was announced by AMD to be extended to 2011 for 32 nm and 22 nm fabrication related technologies[22]. Further, AMD is loosely partnered with end-user companies such as HP, Compaq, ASUS, Alienware, Acer, Evesham Technology, Dell and several others to facilitate processor distribution and sales.
On May 18 2006, Dell announced that it would roll out new servers based on AMD's Opteron chips by years end, thus ending an exclusive relationship with Intel. Dell also began offering AMD Athlon X2 chips in their desktop line-up in September 2006.
AMD is also a sponsor of the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro F1 Team since 2002 and the Discovery Channel team since 2004.
Events and publications
Although AMD has frequently stated the inability of providing information about upcoming products and plans, AMD holds Technology Analyst Days (which often shorten as simply "Analyst Day") annually or semi-annually to reveal and explain key future technologies, as well as official technology roadmaps. Technologies announced in the 2006 analyst days include the several commercial initiatives including Torrenza, and Fusion. Besides Analyst Days, AMD also had held several events for different products, including upcoming enthusiast products, and mobile products for partners and selected participants from time to time.
AMD also publishes printed media. Publications includes the discontinued AMDEdge and AMD Accelerate. The AMD Accelerate magazine, published through Ziff Davis Media, puts focus on SME and business applications while AMD Edge focused on overall technologies from AMD. AMD also has electronic newsletters to promote server Opteron processors and related business solutions.
See also
Companies
★ ATI Technologies
★ Intel Corporation
★ NexGen
★ NVIDIA
★ Spansion
People
★ Jerry Sanders, III
★ Ed Turney
★ Dirk Meyer
★ Héctor Ruiz
Products
★ List of AMD microprocessors
★ List of AMD CPU slots and sockets
★ List of AMD Athlon microprocessors
★ List of AMD Athlon XP microprocessors
★ List of AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors
★ List of AMD Duron microprocessors
★ List of AMD Opteron microprocessors
★ List of AMD Sempron microprocessors
★ List of AMD Turion microprocessors
★ Comparison of AMD Chipsets
★ Comparison of ATI Graphics Processing Units
★ Comparison of ATI Chipsets
★ List of Intel chipsets
★ Comparison of NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units
★ Comparison of AMD Processors
★ Comparison of Intel processors
★ AMD Stream Processor
★ Imageon
★ Xilleon
Related technologies
★ 3DNow! and 3DNow! Professional
★ Cool'n'Quiet
★ PowerNow!
★ Torrenza
★ HyperTransport
References
1. Summary U.S. antitrust complaint against Intel
2. Full text of U.S. antitrust complaint against Intel
3. AMD Completes ATI Acquisition and Creates Processing Powerhouse
4.
5. Scott Wasson. "Workstation platforms compared", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2003-09-15, Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
6. Scott Wasson. "AMD's Athlon 64 processor", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2003-09-23. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
7. Scott Wasson. "AMD's dual-core Opteron processors", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2005-04-21. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
8. Scott Wasson. "AMD's Athlon 64 X2 processors", ''techreport.com'', The Tech Report, LLC., 2005-05-09. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
9. Official Press Release (AMD Live! Ready and Active TV initiative)
10. Official Press Release (AMD Quad FX Platform with Dual Socket Direct Connect Architecture Redefines High-End Computing for Megatasking Enthusiasts)
11. AMD press release
12. AMD IOMMU specification 1.2
13. AMD Analyst Day presentation, page 24, retrieved July 14, 2007
14. Jack PC page
15. Intel Geneseo press release
16. Press release
17. The Green Grid website
18. Rick C. Hodgin. "Wrap-up: AMD outlines a bright future at Technology Analyst Day", ''tgdaily.com'', Tigervision Media, 2007-07-26, pp.4. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
19. Anton Shilov. "AMD’s Fab 36 Fully Converted to 65 nm Process Technology AMD. AMD Is Happy with 65 nm Yields, Including "Barcelona"", ''xbitlabs.com'', X-bit labs, 2007-07-21. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
20. John G. Spooner. "AMD to Build Factory in New York", ''eweek.com'', Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc., 2006-06-23. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
21. Anton Shilov. "AMD Begins Revenue Shipments of Processors Produced by Chartered. AMD Initiates Shipments of Chartered-Built CPUs", ''xbitlabs.com'', X-bit labs, 2006-07-13. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
22. AMD Analyst Day June 2006 Presentation, slide 10
★ AMD: 30 Years of Pursuing the Leader
★ AMD CPU Chart
★ Cpu-collection.de AMD processor images and descriptions
★ AMD goes dual-core
★ Why AMD-MHz don't equal Intel-MHz
★ AMD's most recent conference call transcripts
★ A look at AMD's manufacturing process technologies
External links
★ AMD Corporate Website
★ AMD Live!
Technology
★ Near term AMD interactive product outlook
★ AMD Powerpoint documents on the specification
★ AMD Previews 'Pacifica' Virtualization Technology
★ AMD Preps 'Pacifica' Virtualization Technology
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