Science and technology news blog

This latest announcement from AMD really caught me off-guard. I was thinking of hearing an 8-core announcement, but AMD surprised everyone when they announced that they will be offering a triple-core processor. Its strange for a microchip company to go from single to dual to quad to triple core processor. But this could be a masterstroke from a company that has been struggling off late.

Being the underdogs ever since their inception, the Opteron range really set them up to compete against big bully Intel. However, Intel has struck back with it’s Core range of processors and Barcelona seems to be the one and only hope for AMD to claw back into this race.

AMD’s Barcelona processors are going to re-ignite the processor wars. AMD’s entire future depends on the performance of its new Quad-core range of processors. Since the launch of Intel’s Core processors, AMD has taken a huge beating and all its market share gains in the last few years has been evaporated thanks to Intel’s superior processors. However, come August and AMD will launch its counter-attack with its “native” quad-core processors.

AMD calls it quad-core processors native because it has 4 cores on one die. Intel’s quad-core offering at the moment is two dual-core processors joined together, or in AMD’s words “Stitched” together. On paper it would seem that having 4 cores on a single die would quite obviously be better than having 2 dual-core processors. However, in real world applications its all a different story. AMD seems to be a victim of its own theory. For years, Intel has always had the edge when it came to clock speed, but AMD always had the edge in performance. This time around though its Intel that has the edge in performance in the dual-core products from both the companies.

AMD’s Barcelona processors are going to re-ignite the processor wars. AMD’s entire future depends on the performance of its new Quad-core range of processors. Since the launch of Intel’s Core processors, AMD has taken a huge beating and all its market share gains in the last few years has been evaporated thanks to Intel’s superior processors. However, come August and AMD will launch its counter-attack with its “native” quad-core processors.

AMD calls it quad-core processors native because it has 4 cores on one die. Intel’s quad-core offering at the moment is two dual-core processors joined together, or in AMD’s words “Stitched” together. On paper it would seem that having 4 cores on a single die would quite obviously be better than having 2 dual-core processors. However, in real world applications its all a different story. AMD seems to be a victim of its own theory. For years, Intel has always had the edge when it came to clock speed, but AMD always had the edge in performance. This time around though its Intel that has the edge in performance in the dual-core products from both the companies.

AMD introduced three new media processors that promise to enhance the graphics and video capability of cellphones.The new models extend the existing media processor family that previously was marketed under the ATI brand. The 2294 and 2298 allow users to play and record video in DVD resolution (720×480 pixels). The chips also support digital cameras that deliver images with a resolution of up to 12 megapixels, high-definition audio, TV out and video telephony.

The new Imageon 2192 is aimed at mainstream mobile phones with an image processing capability of up to 3.1 megapixels. The chip also supports TV-Out as well as picture-in-picture support for video telephony applications.

All three new Imageon processors are positioned below the 2300-series, which integrates OpenGL 1.1+ extensions and allows users to play 3D games on their cellphones.

Imageon processors are currently used by Motorola, LG, Fujitsu, Samsung as well as a few other smaller manufacturers of handheld devices. Among the more visible phones with Imageon processors are Motorola’s SLVR, RAZR, MOTORIZR and MOTOKRZR models. (more…)

AMD announces availability of new AMD Opteron processor models in both highly efficient and mainstream thermal envelopes. AMD has expanded the breadth of its low-power solutions with AMD Opteron processor Models 1218 HE, 2218 HE and 8218 HE. Designed to offer high performance-per-watt at 68-watt maximum thermal design power, these processors are suited for energy-conscious customers looking to reduce power and cooling bills and to achieve greater density in the datacenter. AMD Opteron HE processor models now include three 1000 Series models, bringing the benefits of reduced thermals over previous AMD Opteron 1000 Series processors to entry-level server customers while preserving the enterprise reliability they value.

All of the new processors feature AMD PowerNow! technology which is designed for reduced system level energy consumption, with multiple levels of lower clock speed and voltage states that can reduce processor power consumption by as much as 75 percent during idle times.

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Small-form-factor PCs are becoming a mainstay for desktop PCs. Even high-end gamers have gravitated to smaller-form-factor PCs, which typically take up less room and consume less power.

However, there’s no widely adopted format for SFF motherboards smaller than microATX in size. VIA has its mini-ITX form factor, which allows just one expansion slot, while Intel’s Micro- and Nano-BTX form factors have received little support outside of Intel-branded products.

AMD is stepping up to the plate, offering the DTX standard. DTX is strictly a mechanical specification based on the older ATX form factor. The standard will be completely open, and royalty free. It’s also not specifically tied to any AMD products.

DTX comes in two variants—standard and micro. Both versions offer two expansion slots. A standard DTX board would be approximately 9.45 inches by 7.9 inches, while the micro version is about 7.9 inches by 6.7 inches. Contrast this with the current micro ATX boards, which are 9.6 inches by 9.6 inches, with four total expansion slots.

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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is doing an engineering pure quad-core design, which it’s banking on giving it a performance edge. But the big question for 2007 most everyone would like answered is how good is AMD’s quad-core going to be.

While rival chipmaker Intel Corp. is already manufacturing on 45-nanometer chips, AMD said recently its 45-nm products wouldn’t be ready until mid-2008.

Technically, AMD’s pure quad-core approach on an integrated core (versus two dual cores) will produce better performance as there is no signal speed issues between cores to address with external communications links, explained Warren Shiau, associate partner and senior IT analyst for The Strategic Counsel.

“AMD has always trailed Intel in moving to smaller processes. If AMD were to fall two-steps behind Intel and for instance, if AMD got stuck at a 90-nanometer process when Intel was all 45-nanometer there’d be trouble,” Shiau said. “This is why AMD has been and will keep pushing so hard on the manufacturing side.”

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As reported by engadget:

If one of your New Year’s resolutions involved spending a massive chunk of change to kick out as many frames per second as technologically possible, you may want to put the brakes on that impending NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX purchase. Lvl505 got their palms on a pre-release ATI R600 graphics card and put it up against the best NVIDIA currently has to offer, and the results thus far show ATI’s device as “the clear winner.”

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Advanced Micro Devices will be able to collect evidence about events outside the U.S. for an antitrust lawsuit against Intel.

AMD alleges Intel used its dominant position in the microprocessor business to pressure system makers not to use AMD chips in their products. Its suit, before Judge Joseph Farnan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, is scheduled to be heard beginning April 2009.

Intel had argued against allowing discovery, or the collection of evidence, for documents involving activities outside the U.S. But it decided not to object to a Dec. 15 recommendation by Special Master Vincent Poppiti that foreign discovery should go forward, said Intel spokesman Chuck Molloy. A special master is a specialist appointed to overlook certain aspects of a suit.

Intel told Judge Farnan in a letter yesterday that it wouldn’t fight Poppiti’s recommendation. The same day, Farnan ordered Intel to produce documents and other evidence sought in discovery that concern its business outside the U.S. In a press release today, AMD hailed the order as a major victory in its suit, which was filed in June 2005.

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In a series of announcements and conference calls, culminating in a recent analyst meeting, AMD has been slowly revealing pieces of the big picture regarding where they plan to take their platforms in the coming years. I’ve been following the coverage, and I’ve put together a synthesis of it below.

Fusion and Torrenza: die-level vs. board-levelAMD’s long-term plan appears to go as follows. First, they’ll push Torrenza as a platform for doing board-level integration with specialized coprocessors. This way, system builders will have the option of tailoring systems to particular workloads by changing the mix of processors that inhabit the coherent HyperTranspoort sockets on a motherboard.

So for instance, for a four-socket motherboard, one customer may want two stream processors and two multicore general-purpose processors (i.e., Opteron or Athlon), while another may want one Java + XML coprocessor and three multicore general-purpose processors. Thus, system builders can mix and match to get the best performance per watt per dollar for the type of workload that their customers typically run.

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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is reportedly coming up with a new line of processors that consume less power.

These new processors will be made by shrinking the AMD Athlon 64 FX chips used inside desktop computers. The new chips will be manufactured using just a 65 nanometers wide circuitry. Presently, the chips come in a standard size of 90 nanometers.

According to AMD, the new manufacturing technique is a step towards offering healthy competition to rival Intel. Intel has been using an advanced chip manufacturing process for the past one year. Hence, this move is being seen as an attempt at bridging the manufacturing gap between the two companies.

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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) showed a laboratory version of its promised “Barcelona” quad-core Opteron 8000 server chip to analysts gathered in Berkeley, Calif. on Thursday, and said it plans to begin selling the product in the second quarter of 2007.

AMD will pitch the chip to users of high-end, commercial workstations and servers. Customers could see performance improvements of up to 70% in database applications and 40% in floating-point applications, when compared to AMD’s dual-core “Rev F” Opteron, the company said.

The demonstration was AMD’s second effort Thursday to show that it is keeping up with quad-core chips from rival Intel Corp. AMD also launched its “4×4” Quad FX Platform, a motherboard with two dual-core Athlon 64 FX-70 series chips intended for the desktop gaming market.

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When the AMD-ATI merger was announced, one of the first rumors to emerge and then quickly be confirmed was that a combined CPU/GPU product was in the works. From one perspective, the idea of putting CPU and GPU hardware on the same piece of silicon might seem like a novel idea from nowhere, but the industry has been moving in this direction for some time. In fact, back in 1999 I reported that Sun’s MAJC was ostensibly headed in the direction of integrating the CPU and GPU on to the same piece of silicon:

What Sun is thinking here is that at some point in the near future, a company will want to be able to integrate its own proprietary core on a die, alongside with a processor core from a 3rd party. For instance, we might see something like a GPU integrated on the same die as one or two processor cores, where the GPU design is property of one vendor and the core design is property of another.

OPTi filed a patent infringement lawsuit earlier today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against AMD for infringement of three U.S. patents. The three patents at issue in the lawsuit are U.S. Patent No. 5,710,906, U.S. Patent No. 5,813,036 and U.S. Patent No. 6,405,291, all entitled Predictive Snooping of Cache Memory for Master-Initiated Accesses. The patents were awarded in 1995, 1997, and 2000, respectively.

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Dell launched its first notebook PC powered by a processor from Advanced Micro Devices instead of an Intel chip.

With the Inspiron 1501, Dell offers users a choice between AMD’s low-end Sempron, mobile Turion 64, and dual-core Turion 64 X2 chips. The product is aimed at home entertainment and small business users, offering a baseline configuration of the Sempron chip, widescreen 15.4-inch display, 80GB hard drive, and 512MB of memory for a starting price of $549.

Dell launched the product today without fanfare, simply listing it on the company Web site without the usual flurry of press releases. The company did not return calls for comment.

Dell had announced in May that it would began selling AMD-based servers, after remaining loyal to Intel processors for so long that it was the only major PC vendor not offering its customers a choice. By then, AMD had eaten significant chunks of Intel’s enormous market share, riding the success of its efficient Opteron server chip to acclaim for its full range of chips. Indeed, by September Dell had also launched AMD-powered desktops.

Intel has since struck back, launching its new Core 2 Duo and Xeon 5100 families of chips in June, July, and August. But the damage was already done, as a series of disappointing quarterly earnings results forced Intel to reorganize the company and lay off 10,500 employees.

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