An undisclosed maker of motherboards has already added mentions of AMD’s upcoming accelerated processing units in the binary of its BIOS. It is highly likely that AMD’s latest reference BIOS versions already include support of the company’s future microprocessors. As a result, mentions of the chips migrate to commercial products. …
Read More »AMD engineer: Developers were given the total freedom with ‘Zen’
The “Zen” micro-architecture is a tremendously important project for Advanced Micro Devices. If the new technology is successful, AMD will become a viable developer of central processing units again. If not, the company will have troubles with surviving. Fortunately, “Zen” is a completely new micro-architecture that promises to be very …
Read More »Legendary microprocessor developer Jim Keller leaves AMD
Advanced Micro Devices on Friday said that Jim Keller, a legendary microprocessor architect, will leave the company, effective immediately. Mr. Keller worked on multiple future generations of central processing units (CPUs) and system-on-chips (SoCs) at AMD, his departure will have an effect on the company’s long-term roadmap, but will not …
Read More »AMD is researching multi-core ‘exascale heterogeneous processor’
Advanced Micro Devices has confirmed that it is researching a multi-core accelerated processing unit based on “Zen” micro-architecture, which will eventually power supercomputers with extreme performance. At present the company is only considering a concept design and it is unclear when AMD decides to actually develop such processor. AMD, just …
Read More »AMD vows to keep R&D investments at appropriate levels
Despite of tough times, Advanced Micro Devices plans to sustain its research and development investments on certain levels in a bid to ensure that its products are competitive in the future. Research and development are two corner stones of high-tech companies. Without fundamental research of things that may not seem important today …
Read More »AMD: We have taped out our first FinFET products
Advanced Micro Devices said on Thursday that it had taped out its first products, which will be made using a FinFET process technology. While AMD does not reveal which products it had taped out, it is highly-likely that one of them is a highly-anticipated microprocessor based on “Zen” micro-architecture. “We …
Read More »AMD is considering breakup, spin-off graphics business unit – report
Chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices has ordered a research to review possibilities of splitting the company in two or spinning off a multimedia chip business unit, a media report claims. The company is mulling different options, as it desperately wants to become competitive against Intel. AMD itself denies …
Read More »AMD set to release first ‘Zen’-based microprocessors in late 2016 – document
While Advanced Micro Devices’ next-generation micro-architecture known as “Zen” looks very impressive on paper, it will not hit the market any time soon. In fact, AMD plans to release the first microprocessors featuring the new cores only in late 2016, according to a document published by a web-site. AMD’s first …
Read More »AMD’s ‘Zen’ may enable company to be a viable competitor to Intel – analyst
Advanced Micro Devices has not updated its server and high-end desktop microprocessors for well over two years now, which is why market shares of AMD Opteron and AMD FX central processing units are negligible. However, a lot may change next year, when AMD roll-out its next-generation CPUs based on its …
Read More »AMD: Development of ‘Zen’ CPUs is our largest R&D spending now
Advanced Micro Devices has been slashing its research and development budgets for a number of quarters in a row now due to decreasing revenues. With limited R&D resources, AMD has to prioritize its spendings. According to chief executive officer of AMD, at present the company spends most of its R&D …
Read More »Next-gen AMD platform: processor-direct NVMe storage, USB 3.1, Promontory PCH
Next year Advanced Micro Devices plans to introduce not only all-new accelerated processing units and central processing units, but also fresh platforms for client PCs. While AMD will do a lot to unify its next-gen platforms, there will still be major differences between systems powered by different microprocessors. AMD’s client …
Read More »AMD confirms plan to release datacentre-oriented APU in 2016 – 2017
Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday confirmed development of its first accelerated processing unit for high-performance computing and workstation applications. The chip will integrate many high-performance general-purpose cores as well as high-performance graphics processing unit. The company did not reveal any exact information about the upcoming chip. “In 2016 – 2017 …
Read More »AMD delays introduction of K12-based processors to 2017
Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday said that it will delay high-volume shipments of microprocessors powered by its custom ARMv8-compatible “K12” cores to 2017. The company did not reveal any reasons behind the postponement. AMD’s “K12” core is the company’s first 64-bit ARMv8-A-compatible microprocessor engine designed entirely in-house. Development of the …
Read More »AMD: Zen is 40% faster than current x86 cores, Zen+ is incoming
Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday confirmed that its next-generation high-performance x86 micro-architecture code-named “Zen” will power its leading-edge microprocessors in 2016. The company also revealed that its developers are already working on “Zen+” micro-architecture for its future processors. Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, said that “Zen” x86 processor …
Read More »No more cats: AMD reconsiders ultra-low-power CPU roadmap
Advanced Micro Devices first revealed plans to develop special low-power/low-cost x86 micro-architectures in mid-2007 in a bid to compete for ultra-portable and inexpensive devices. The micro-architectures got their names – Bobcat, Jaguar and Puma – from cats to emphasize their agility and efficiency. Eight years later AMD abandons development of …
Read More »AMD roadmap leaks: Summit Ridge, Bristol Ridge, Basilisk and Styx
An alleged AMD insider has published what it appears to be the company’s microprocessor roadmap for 2016. If the plan is accurate and AMD manages to execute it, then next year the company will release a top-to-bottom family of central processing units based on “Zen” micro-architecture as well as one …
Read More »More AMD ‘Zen’ CPU details emerge: quad-core units, inclusive cache, high-speed interconnects
Anonymous insiders from Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday revealed more details about the company’s upcoming microprocessors based on “Zen” micro-architecture. Just as expected, the new “Zen” central processing units will be dramatically different compared to “Bulldozer” CPUs. Moreover, as it appears, AMD intends to reconsider some of the things that …
Read More »Diagram of AMD’s ‘Zen’ CPU core leaks: six integer pipes, two 256-bit FPUs [UPDATED]
UPDATE: The original story stated that it described an implementation of an AMD microprocessor based on “Zen” micro-architecture. In fact, the story describes one “Zen” core. Although there are a lot of rumours about AMD’s next-generation code-named “Zen” microprocessors, there are not a lot of official or even semi-official details about …
Read More »32-core AMD Opteron to feature quad-die MCM design
Advanced Micro Devices will continue to use multi-chip-module design for its upcoming AMD Opteron processors. This should greatly help the company to reduce its development and manufacturing costs, but may affect performance of its central processing units for servers. The forthcoming AMD Opteron processors with up to 32 cores based …
Read More »Next-gen AMD Opteron chips to feature up to 32 cores
Advanced Micro Devices currently commands less than two per cent of the world’s server CPU market, but next year it plans to start recapturing its share from Intel Corp. with new Opteron microprocessors based on “Zen” micro-architecture. According to a media report, AMD’s next-gen server chips offer unprecedented amount of …
Read More »AMD cuts ‘Bulldozer’ instructions from ‘Zen’ processors
Advanced Micro Devices has been talking about development of its next-generation high-performance “Zen” architecture for months now, but so far it has not revealed any details about the chips officially. Nonetheless, thanks to a recent patch for Linux we have learnt one significant detail about “Zen”: it will not support many …
Read More »AMD begins to enable ‘Zen’ processors support in Linux
Advanced Micro Devices has begun to add support of its upcoming microprocessors powered by “Zen” micro-architecture to Linux operating systems. The enablement of future chips in Linux confirms AMD’s plans to release such central processing units and even reveals some facts about their functionality. Unfortunately, addition of support does not …
Read More »AMD: We will actively promote ‘Zen’ processors for server market
Advanced Micro Devices now commands only about 2 or 3 per cent of the server market because of various reasons and the company is not going to regain its positions with the current Opteron offerings. Nonetheless, the chip designer seems to pin a lot of hopes on its “Zen” micro-architecture …
Read More »AMD to boost energy efficiency of APUs by 25 times by 2020
Advanced Micro Devices recently set a goal to improve energy efficiency of its accelerated processing units by 25 times by 2020. To achieve this goal, AMD will have to outpace historical energy efficiency trend by over 70 per cent, but the company claims it knows what to do and even …
Read More »AMD vows not to cut R&D expenses, plans to streamline operations
Although AMD has just announced a plan to reduce its workforce by 7 per cent and align its real estate footprint with its reduced headcount, the company has no plans to reduce spending on research and development (R&D). All the cuts will be made in different segments. While it is …
Read More »AMD launches ‘Core is back’ campaign, readies mysterious APU launch?
Advanced Micro Devices this week started a mysterious “Core is back” campaign by publishing a video on its Facebook page. The campaign is clearly designed to promote AMD’s Fusion accelerated processing units, heterogeneous chips containing x86 and highly-parallel graphics processing cores. The video shows how applications (depicted as monsters) fight …
Read More »AMD: We will ship 20nm products in 2015
Although there are rumours that Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp. are not really happy with 20nm process technology of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., they will inevitably have to use it. A vice president of AMD said last week that the company’s 20nm chips would be out next year. “20nm …
Read More »AMD’s Carrizo APUs rumoured to feature integrated HBM memory
One of the advantages that some of Intel Corp.’s integrated graphics processors (IGPs) have compared to AMD’s IGPs is a large level four cache that is used to store frequently used data. While at present AMD’s integrate graphics adapters are still faster compared to Intel’s, in the future the latter …
Read More »AMD to increase energy efficiency of APUs by 25 times by 2020
Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday unveiled a rather bold strategy called 25X20 under which it intends to dramatically increase energy efficiency of its accelerated processing units by the year 2020. In the next six years AMD plans to further optimize power consumption of its chips and also increase their performance, …
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