Sunday, September 20, 2009
AMD
Advanced micro devices
| Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. | |
| Founded | 1969 |
| W. Jerry Sanders III | |
| Headquarters | |
| Microprocessors | |
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) (NYSE: AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets. Its main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers, workstations and personal computers, and processor technologies for handheld devices, digital television, automobiles, game consoles, and other embedded systems applications.
AMD is the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors based on the x86 architecture after Intel Corporation, and the third-largest supplier of graphics processing units, behind Intel and Nvidia. It also owns 21 percent of Spansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory. In 2007, AMD ranked eleventh among semiconductor manufacturers in terms of revenue.[2]
Processor market history
Early AMD 8080 Processor (AMD AM9080ADC / C8080A), 1977
IBM PC and the x86 architecture
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 original equipment manufacturers, 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.
AMD's first in-house x86 processor was the K5 which was launched in 1996.[6] The "K" was a reference to "Kryptonite", which from comic book lore, was the only substance (radioactive pieces of his home planet) which could harm Superman, a clear reference to Intel, which dominated in the market at the time, as "Superman".[7]
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. On October 9, 2001 the Athlon XP was released, followed by the Athlon XP with 512KB L2 Cache on February 10, 2003.[8]
Athlon 64, Opteron and Phenom
The K8 was 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.[9] Shortly thereafter it was incorporated into a product for desktop PCs, branded Athlon 64.[10]
AMD released the first dual core Opteron, an x86-based server CPU, on April 21, 2005.[11] The first desktop-based dual core processor family—the Athlon 64 X2—came a month later.[12] In early May 2007, AMD had abandoned the string "64" in its dual-core desktop product branding, becoming Athlon X2, downplaying the significance of 64-bit computing in its processors while upcoming updates involved some of the improvements to the microarchitecture, and a shift of target market from mainstream desktop systems to value dual-core desktop systems. AMD has also started to release dual-core Sempron processors in early 2008 exclusively in China, branded as Sempron 2000 series, with lower HyperTransport speed and smaller L2 cache, thus the firm completes its dual-core product portfolio for each market segment.
The latest AMD microprocessor architecture, known as K10, became the successor to the K8 microarchitecture. The first processors released on this architecture were introduced on September 10, 2007 consisting of nine quad-core Third Generation Opteron processors. This was followed by the Phenom processor for desktop. K10 processors will come in dual, triple-core,[13] and quad-core versions with all cores on one single die.
Other platforms and technologies
Before the launch of Athlon 64 processors in 2003, AMD designed chipsets for their processors spanning the K6 and K7 processor generations. The chipsets include the AMD-640, AMD-751 and the AMD-761 chipsets. The situation changed in 2003 with the release of Athlon 64 processors, and AMD chose not to further design its own chipsets for its desktop processors while opening the desktop platform to allow other firms to design chipsets. This is the "Open Platform ATI, VIA and SiS developing their own chipset for Athlon 64 processors and later Athlon 64 X2 and Athlon 64 FX processors, including the Quad FX platform chipset from Nvidia.
The initiative went further with the release of Opteron server processors as AMD stopped the design of server chipsets in 2004 after releasing the AMD-8111 chipset, and again opened the server platform for firms to develop chipsets for Opteron processors. As of today, Nvidia and Broadcom are the sole designing firms of server chipsets for Opteron processors.
As the company completed the acquisition of ATI Technologies in 2006, the firm gained the ATI design team for chipsets which previously designed the Radeon Xpress 200 and the Radeon Xpress 3200 chipsets. AMD then renamed the chipsets for AMD processors under AMD branding (for instance, the CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset was renamed as AMD 580X CrossFire chipset). In February 2007, AMD announced the first AMD-branded chipset since 2004 with the release of the AMD 690G chipset (previously under the development codename RS690), targeted at mainstream IGP computing. It was the industry's first to implement a HDMI 1.2 port on motherboards, shipping for more than a million units. While ATI had aimed at releasing an Intel IGP chipset, the plan was scrapped and the inventories of Radeon Xpress 1250 (codenamed RS600, sold under ATI brand) was sold to two OEMs, Abit and AsRock. Although AMD states the firm will still produce Intel chipsets, Intel had not granted the license of 1333 MHz FSB to ATI. Considering the rivalry between AMD and Intel, AMD is less likely to release more Intel chipset designs in the foreseeable future.
On November 15, 2007, AMD has announced a new chipset series portfolio, the AMD 7-Series chipsets, covering from enthusiast multi-graphics segment to value IGP segment, to replace the AMD 480/570/580 chipsets and AMD 690 series chipsets, marking AMD's first enthusiast multi-graphics chipset. Discrete graphics chipsets were launched on November 15, 2007 as part of the codenamed Spider desktop platform, and IGP chipsets were launched at a later time in Spring 2008 as part of the codenamed Cartwheel platform.
AMD will also return to the server chipsets market with the next-generation AMD 800S series server chipsets, scheduled to be released in 2009 timeframe.
The AMD Quad FX platform, being an extreme enthusiast platform, allows two processors to 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,[16] 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".
The first AMD server/workstation platform after ATI acquisition is scheduled to be released on 2009 timeframe. Codenamed Fiorano, AMD's first multi-processor server platform after ATI acquisition consists of AMD SR5690 + SP5100 server chipsets, supporting 45 nm, codenamed Shanghai Socket F+ processors and registered DDR2 memory. Future update include the Maranello platform supporting 45 nm, codenamed Istanbul, Socket G34 processors with DDR3 memory. On single-processor platform, the codenamed Catalunya platform consists of codenamed Suzuka 45 nm quad-core processor with AMD SR5580 + SP5100 chipset and DDR3 support.
AMD's x86 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. The third generation (8300 and 2300 series) of Opteron processors will see an update in virtualization technology, specifically the Rapid Virtualization Indexing (also known by the development name Nested Page Tables), alongside the Tagged TLB and Device Exclusion Vector (DEV).
AMD also promotes the "AMD I/O Virtualization Technology" (also known as IOMMU) for I/O virtualization. The AMD IOMMU specification has been updated to version 1.2. The specification describes the use of a HyperTransport architecture.
Starting in 2007, AMD, following Intel, began using codenames for its desktop platforms such as Spider or Dragon . 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.
Updates to the platform includes the implemtation of IOMMU I/O Virtualization with 45 nm generation of processors, and the AMD 800 chipset series in 2009.[23]
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 June 13, 2006, AMD officially announced that the Alchemy processor line was transferred to Raza Microelectronics Inc.[24]
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. This technology is used in a variety of embedded systems (Casino slot machines and customer kiosks for instance), several UMPC designs in Asia markets, as well as the OLPC XO-1 computer, an inexpensive laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world.
For the past couple of years AMD has been introducing 64-bit processors into its embedded product line starting with the AMD Opteron processor. Leveraging the high throughput enabled through HyperTransport and the Direct Connect Architecture these server class processors have been targeted at high end telecom and storage applications. In 2006 AMD added the AMD Athlon, AMD Turion and Mobile AMD Sempron processors to its embedded product line. Leveraging the same 64-bit instruction set and Direct Connect Architecture as the AMD Opteron but at lower power levels, these processors were well suited to a variety of traditional embedded applications. Throughout 2007 and into 2008 AMD has continued to add both single-core Mobile AMD Sempron and AMD Athlon processors and dual-core AMD Athlon X2 and AMD Turion processors to its embedded product line and now offers embedded 64-bit solutions starting with 8W TDP Mobile AMD Sempron and AMD Athlon processors for fan-less designs up to multi-processor systems leveraging multi-core AMD Opteron processors all supporting longer than standard availability.
In April 2007, AMD announced the release of the M690T integrated graphics chipset for embedded designs. This enabled AMD to offer complete processor and chipset solutions targeted at embedded applications requiring high performance 3D and video such as emerging digital signage, kiosk and Point of Sale applications. The M690T was followed by the M690E specifically for embedded applications which removed the TV output, which required Macrovision licensing for OEMs, and enabled native support for dual TMDS outputs, enabling dual independent DVI interfaces.
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 Xpress chipsets (to AMD chipsets) for AMD processors platform and GPGPU computing line-up FireStream, previously known as AMD Stream Processor. 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 claim which is lent some credence by their current agreement with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing based in Singapore.
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.
Through the acquisition of ATI, AMD 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 coincidentally TSMC had announced it had received orders to fabricate x86 processors.
AMD Saxony in Dresden, Germany is the major wafer production site.
AMD's main microprocessor manufacturing and design facilities are located in Dresden, Germany. Additionally, 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 plant (300 mm 90 nm process SOI) in the same complex 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 reached 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.[32]
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.[33] Because of US$5 billion in long-term debt, during summer of 2008 AMD has tried and failed to sell both Dresden plants for which there has not been buyers.[34]
Packaging and testing facilities for its microprocessor products are located in Singapore, Malaysia and China.
Furthermore, AMD announced plans to open a new $3.2 billion facility at the Luther Forest Technology Campus across the towns of Malta and Stillwater in Saratoga County, New York. This new Fab 4x will likely produce 300 mm 32 nm process SOI production, with construction taking place from 2009 to 2010. Some speculation exists as to whether this facility will use high-K/metal gate technology that AMD obtained from IBM.[35]
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.
AMD maintains major design facilities in Fort Collins, CO, Sunnyvale, CA, Austin, TX, Boxborough, MA and Bangalore, India. With the acquisition of ATI Technologies, the company gained ownership over major design facilities in Markham, ON and Santa Clara, CA.
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 Hyper Transport, 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.[37] 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 Pro Cycling Team since 2004, in 2009 AMD also became the jersey sponsor of the USL expansion team Austin Aztex FC.
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Labels: microprocessors
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