Advanced Micro Devices

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   (Redirected from AMD Graphics Product Group) Jump to: navigation, search Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Type Public Traded as NYSE: AMD S&P 500 Component Industry Semiconductors Founded May 1, 1969 Founder(s) Jerry Sanders Edwin Turney Additional co-founders Headquarters One AMD Place, Sunnyvale, California, U.S. Area served Worldwide Key people Bruce Claflin (Executive Chairman) Rory Read (CEO) Products Microprocessors Motherboard chipsets Graphics processors Random-access memory TV tuner cards Revenue US$5.422 billion (2012) Operating income US$-1.056 billion (2012) Net income US$-1.183 billion (2012) Total assets US$4.000 billion (2012) Total equity US$538 million (2012) Employees 10,340 (2012) Website AMD.com

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational (fabless after GlobalFoundries was spun off in 2009) 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 embedded systems applications.

AMD is the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors based on the x86 architecture (behind Intel) and also one of the largest suppliers of graphics processing units. It also owns 8.6% of Spansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory.

AMD is the only significant rival to Intel in the central processor (CPU) market for (x86 based) personal computers. Since acquiring ATI in 2006, AMD and its competitor Nvidia have dominated the discrete graphics processor unit (GPU) market.

Corporate history

AMD headquarters in Sunnyvale, California AMD campus in Markham, Ontario, Canada, formerly ATI headquarters AMD's LEED-certified Lone Star campus in Austin, Texas

Advanced Micro Devices was founded on May 1, 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 company began as a producer of logic chips, 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 also attempted to diversify into graphics and audio devices as well as EPROM memory. It had some success in the mid-1980s 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. The AMD 29K survived as an embedded processor and AMD spinoff Spansion continues to make flash memory. AMD decided to switch gears and concentrate solely on Intel-compatible microprocessors and flash memory, placing them in direct competition with Intel for x86-compatible processors and their flash memory secondary markets.

AMD announced the acquisition of ATI Technologies on July 24, 2006. AMD paid $4.3 billion in cash and 58 million shares of its stock, for a total of US$5.4 billion. The transaction completed on October 25, 2006. Since 2010, all of the company's graphics processing products have been marketed under the AMD brand name.

It was reported in December 2006 that AMD, along with its main rival in the graphics industry Nvidia, received subpoenas from the Justice Department regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics card industry, including the act of fixing prices.

In October 2008, AMD announced plans to spin off manufacturing operations in the form of a multibillion-dollar joint venture with Advanced Technology Investment Co., an investment company formed by the government of Abu Dhabi. The new venture is called GlobalFoundries Inc.. This partnership will allow AMD to focus solely on chip design. The spin off was accompanied by the loss of approximately 1000 jobs, or about 10% of AMD's global workforce.

In August 2011, AMD announced that former Lenovo executive Rory Read would be joining the company as CEO, following Dirk Meyer.

To secure cost savings and support workforce revisions focused on the development of low-power computing hardware, AMD announced in November 2011 plans to lay off more than 10% (1400) of its employees from across all divisions worldwide. This action was to have completed by Q1 2012 with most exits before Christmas 2011. AMD announced in October 2012 plans to release an additional 15% of its workforce with an unspecified effective date to reduce costs in the face of declining sales revenue.

AMD acquired the low-power server manufacturer SeaMicro in early 2012 as part of a strategy to regain lost market share in the server chip market.

Processor market history

Early AMD 8080 Processor (AMD AM9080ADC / C8080A), 1977 AMD D8086, 1978 See also: List of AMD microprocessors IBM PC and the x86 architecture Main articles: Am286, Am386, Am486, and 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 designed 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.

K5, K6, Athlon, Duron, and Sempron Main articles: AMD K5, AMD K6, Athlon, Duron, and Sempron

AMD's first in-house x86 processor was the K5, which was launched in 1996. The "K" was a reference to Kryptonite. (In comic books, the only substance which could harm Superman was Kryptonite, which was formed from radioactive pieces of his home planet, Krypton. Intel was like Superman, because they dominated the market.) The numeral "5" refers to the fifth processor generation, which Intel introduced as Pentium, because the US Trademark and Patent Office ruled that mere numbers could not be trademarked.

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. Although the K6 was based on Socket 7, variants such as K6-3/450 were faster than Intel's Pentium II (sixth generation processor).

The K7 was AMD's seventh-generation x86 processor, making its debut on June 23, 1999, under the brand name Athlon. Unlike previous AMD processors, it could not be used on the same motherboards as Intel's, due to licensing issues surrounding Intel's Slot 1 connector, and instead used a Slot A connector, referenced to the Alpha processor bus. The Duron was a lower-cost and limited version of the Athlon (64KB instead of 256KB L2 cache) in a 462-pin socketed PGA (socket A) or soldered directly onto the motherboard. Sempron was released as a lower-cost Athlon XP, replacing Duron in the socket A PGA era. It has since been migrated upward to all new sockets, up to AM3.

On October 9, 2001, the Athlon XP was released. On February 10, 2003, the Athlon XP with 512KB L2 Cache was released.

Athlon 64, Opteron and Phenom Main articles: Athlon 64, Opteron, and Phenom (processor)

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 (called x86-64, AMD64, or x64), 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 on April 22, 2003. Shortly thereafter it was incorporated into a product for desktop PCs, branded Athlon 64.

On April 21, 2005, AMD released the first dual core Opteron, an x86-based server CPU. A month later, AMD released the Athlon 64 X2, the first desktop-based dual core processor family. 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. 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. In 2008, AMD started to release dual-core Sempron processors exclusively in China, branded as the Sempron 2000 series, with lower HyperTransport speed and smaller L2 cache. Thus AMD completed its dual-core product portfolio for each market segment.

After K8 came K10. On September 10, 2007, AMD released the first K10 processors: nine quad-core Third Generation Opteron processors. This was followed by the Phenom processor for desktop. K10 processors came in dual-core, triple-core, and quad-core versions, with all cores on a single die. AMD released a new platform, codenamed "Spider", which utilized the new Phenom processor, as well as an R770 GPU and a 790 GX/FX chipset from the AMD 700 chipset series. However, AMD built the Spider at 65nm, which was uncompetitive with Intel's smaller and more power-efficient 45nm.

In January 2009, AMD released a new processor line dubbed Phenom II, a refresh of the original Phenom built using the 45 nm process. AMD's new platform, codenamed “Dragon”, utilised the new Phenom II processor, and an ATI R770 GPU from the R700 GPU family, as well as a 790 GX/FX chipset from the AMD 700 chipset series. The Phenom II came in dual-core, triple-core and quad-core variants, all using the same die, with cores disabled for the triple-core and dual-core versions. The Phenom II resolved issues that the original Phenom had, including low clock speed, a small L3 cache and a Cool'n'Quiet bug that decreased performance. The Phenom II was price and performance-competitive with Intel's mid-to-high-range Core 2 Quads. The Phenom II also enhanced the Phenom's memory controller, allowing it to use DDR3 in a new native socket AM3, while maintaining backwards compatibility with AM2+, the socket used for the Phenom, and allowing the use of the DDR2 memory that was used with the platform.

In April 2010, AMD released a new Phenom II hexa-core (6-core) processor codenamed "Thuban". This was a totally new die based on the hexa-core “Istanbul” Opteron processor. It included AMD's “turbo core” technology, which allows the processor to automatically switch from 6 cores to 3 faster cores when more pure speed is needed. AMD's Enthusiast platform, codenamed “Leo”, utilized the new Phenom II, a new chipset from the AMD 800 chipset series and an ATI “Cypress” GPU from the Evergreen (GPU family) GPU series.

The Magny Cours and Lisbon server parts were released in 2010. The Magny Cours part came in 8 to 12 cores and the Lisbon part came in 4 and 6 core parts. Magny Cours is focused on performance while the Lisbon part is focused on high performance per watt. Magny Cours is an MCM (Multi-Chip Module) with two hexa-core “Istanbul” Opteron parts. This will use a new G34 socket for dual and quad socket processors and thus will be marketed as Opteron 61xx series processors. Lisbon uses C32 socket certified for dual socket use or single socket use only and thus will be marketed as Opteron 41xx processors. Both will be built on a 45 nm SOI process.

Fusion, Bobcat, Bulldozer, and Vishera Main articles: AMD Accelerated Processing Unit, Bulldozer (processor), and Bobcat (processor)

After the merger between AMD and ATI, an initiative codenamed Fusion was announced that will merge a CPU and GPU on some of their mainstream chips, 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. The initiative will see some of the processing originally done on the CPU (e.g. floating-point unit operations) moved to the GPU, which is better optimized for calculations such as floating-point unit calculations. This is referred to by AMD as an accelerated processing unit (APU).

Llano is to be the second APU released, targeted at the mainstream market. This will incorporate a CPU and GPU on the same die, as well as the northbridge functions, and labeled on AMD's new timeline as using "Socket FM1" with DDR3 memory. This will, however, not be based on the new bulldozer core and will in fact be similar to the current Phenom II "Deneb" processor serving as AMD's high-end processor until the release of the new 32 nm parts. On September 28, 2011, AMD said that the third quarter of 2011 won't have a 10% revenue increase as AMD planned before, because of the manufacturing problem with the 32 nm Llano Fusion chips.

Bulldozer is Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) CPU codename for the second latest server and desktop processors released on October 12, 2011. This family 15h microarchitecture is the successor to the family 10h (K10) microarchitecture M-SPACE design methodology.

Bulldozer is designed from scratch, not a development of earlier processors. The core is specifically aimed at 10-125 watt TDP computing products. AMD claims dramatic performance-per-watt efficiency improvements in high-performance computing (HPC) applications with Bulldozer cores.

Vishera is AMD's latest processor series

Bobcat is the latest x86 processor core from AMD aimed at low-power/low-cost market.

It was revealed during a speech from AMD executive vice-president Henri Richard in Computex 2007 and was put into production Q1 2011. One of the major supporters was executive vice-president Mario A. Rivas who felt it was difficult to compete in the x86 market with a single core optimized for the 10-100 Watts range and actively promoted the development of the simpler core with a target range of 1-10 Watts. In addition, it was believed that the core could migrate into the hand-held space if the power consumption can be reduced to less than 1 W.

ARM architecture-based chip

AMD intends to release in 2014 an ARM chip for use in servers as a low-power alternative to current x86 chips as part of a strategy to regain lost market share in the server chip business.

Products and technologies

Graphics products See also: Comparison of AMD graphics processing units, Graphics hardware and FOSS, and Comparison of ATI chipsets

AMD's portfolio of dedicated graphics processors includes product families and associated technologies aimed at the consumer, professional and high-performance computing markets.

Radeon is AMD's line of consumer 3D accelerator add-in cards. Mobility Radeon is a series of power-optimized versions of Radeon graphics chips for use in laptops. They introduced innovations such as modularized RAM chips, DVD (MPEG2) acceleration, notebook GPU card sockets, and power management technology. AMD recently announced DirectX 11.1-compatible versions of its mobile processors. FirePro is AMD's line of professional graphics processors for workstations. Based on the Radeon series, it succeeds the FireGL series of workstation CAD/CAM video cards, and the FireMV series for workstations with 2D acceleration. FireStream is a stream processor designed to utilize the stream processing/GPGPU (General Purpose Graphics Processing Units) concept for heavy floating-point computations to target various industries, such as the High Performance Computing (HPC), scientific, and financial sectors. The AMD FireStream can also be used as a floating-point co-processor for offloading CPU calculations, which is part of the Torrenza initiative. EyeFinity – Allows up to 6 monitors to be connected to one card to allow surround-screen panoramic view. EyeSpeed – Allows to experience games with true-to-life actions-and reactions. Features such as physics effects, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and more.

AMD Catalyst is a collection of proprietary device drivers software available for most platforms, including Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. Linux users can also opt to use open-source drivers, whose development is assisted by AMD. Hardware component companies which only provide proprietary drivers have always been urged by the free-software community to make their drivers free software, or at least provide the necessary documentation for the community to write their own drivers.

Since 2007, the AMD has partly cooperated with the development of free graphics drivers, but have not made their Catalyst drivers free. The programming specifications for a number of chipsets and features were published in several rounds. This greatly changed their support of the development of free graphics drivers, as until that moment only unsupported free drivers existed. Besides releasing the specifications, AMD also funded the development of new "open source" drivers, and has even hired some employees to actively work on free software drivers.

AMD chipsets See also: Comparison of AMD chipsets

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 was the “Open Platform Management Architecture” with 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.

On November 15, 2007, AMD 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 returned to the server chipsets market with the AMD 800S series server chipsets. It includes support for up to six SATA 6.0 Gbit/s ports, the C6 power state, which is featured in Fusion processors and AHCI 1.2 with SATA FIS–based switching support. This is a chipset family supporting Phenom processors and Quad FX enthusiast platform (890FX), IGP(890GX).

AMD Live! Main article: AMD Live!

As of 2007, AMD LIVE! was a platform marketing initiative focusing the consumer electronics segment, with an 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".

AMD Quad FX platform Main article: AMD Quad FX platform

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-70 series processors and a special motherboard. AMD pushed the platform for the surging demands for what AMD calls "megatasking", the ability to do more tasks on a single system. The platform refreshes with the introduction of Phenom FX processors and the next-generation RD790 chipset, codenamed "FASN8".

Commercial platform

AMD's first multi-processor server platform, codenamed Fiorano, consists of AMD SR5690 + SP5100 server chipsets, supporting 45 nm, codenamed Shanghai Socket F+ processors and registered DDR2 memory. It was followed by 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.

AMD's commercial initiatives include the following:

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. AMD Raiden, future clients similar to the Jack PC to be connected through network to a blade server for central management, to reduce client form factor sizes with AMD Trinity features. Torrenza, coprocessors support through interconnects such as HyperTransport, and PCI Express (though more focus was at HyperTransport enabled coprocessors), 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 respond with the opening of Front Side Bus (FSB) architecture as well as Geneseo, a collaboration project with IBM for coprocessors connected through PCI Express. 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 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 implementation of IOMMU I/O Virtualization with 45 nm generation of processors, and the AMD 800 chipset series in 2009.

Embedded systems Main articles: Alchemy (processor) and Geode (processor)

In February 2002, AMD acquired Alchemy Semiconductor for its Alchemy line of MIPS processors for the hand-held and portable media player markets. On June 13, 2006, AMD officially announced that the line was to be transferred to Raza Microelectronics, Inc., a designer of MIPS processors for embedded applications.

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. The Geode LX processor was announced in 2005 and is said will continue to be available through 2015.

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 2007 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.

The ATI acquisition included the Imageon and Xilleon product lines. In late 2008, the entire handheld division was sold off to Qualcomm, who have since produced the Adreno series. The Xilleon division was sold to Broadcom.

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.

In 2008, AMD announced the Radeon E2400, the first discrete GPU in their embedded product line offering the same long term availability as their other embedded products. That was followed in 2009 with the higher performance Redeon E4690 discrete GPU.

In 2009, AMD announced their first BGA packaged e64 architecture processors, known as the ASB1 family.

In 2010, AMD announced a second generation BGA platform referred to as ASB2. They also announced several new AM3 based processors with support for DDR3 memory.

In January 2011, AMD Announced the AMD Embedded G-Series Accelerated Processing Unit. The first Fusion family APU for embedded applications. This announcement was followed by announcements for the high performance AMD Radeon E6760 and the value-conscious Radeon E6460 discrete GPUs. These solutions all added support for DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.1 and OpenCL 1.1.

In May 2012, AMD Announced the AMD Embedded R-Series Accelerated Processing Unit. This family of products incorporates the Bulldozer CPU architecture, and Discrete-class AMD Radeon™ HD 7000G Series graphics.

AMD Embedded solution offer 5+ year product life.

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, founded by AMD together with other founders, such as IBM, Sun and Microsoft, to seek lower power consumption for grids. 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 initiatives 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. Another one is the extension of Streaming SIMD Extension (SSE) instruction set, the SSE5. AMD contributes to open source projects, including working with Sun Microsystems to enhance OpenSolaris and Sun xVM on the AMD platform. AMD also maintains its own Open64 compiler distribution and contributes its changes back to the community. In 2008, AMD released the low-level programming specifications for its GPUs, and works with the X.Org Foundation to develop drivers for AMD graphics cards. AMD has also taken an active part in developing coreboot, and open source projects aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS firmware. Other AMD software includes the AMD Core Math Library, and open-source software including the AMD Performance Library, and the CodeAnalyst performance profiler.

Production and fabrication

Main article: GlobalFoundries

Ever since the spin-off of AMD's fabrication plants in early 2009, GlobalFoundries has been responsible for producing AMD's processors.

GlobalFoundries' main microprocessor manufacturing 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 could produce, thus becoming more competitive with Intel. The new plant was named "Fab 36", in recognition of AMD's 36 years of operation, and reached full production in mid-2007. Fab 36 was renamed to "Fab 1" during the spin-off of AMD's manufacturing business during the creation of GlobalFoundries. In July 2007, AMD announced that they completed the conversion of Fab 1 Module 1 from 90 nm to 65 nm. They then shifted their focus to the 45 nm conversion.

Corporate affairs

Partnerships

AMD utilizes strategic industry partnerships to further its business interests as well as to tackle Intel's dominance and resources.

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 motherboards that are compatible with AMD processors.

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. AMD announced that the partnership would extend to 2011 for 32 nm and 22 nm fabrication-related technologies.

To facilitate processor distribution and sales, AMD is loosely partnered with end-user companies, such as HP, Compaq, ASUS, Acer, and Dell.

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 went public under the name Spansion and 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.

On May 18, 2006, Dell announced that it would roll out new servers based on AMD's Opteron chips by year's end, thus ending an exclusive relationship with Intel. In September 2006, Dell began offering AMD Athlon X2 chips in their desktop line-up.

Since 2002, AMD has been a sponsor of the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro F1 Team. Since 2004, AMD has been a sponsor of the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team. In 2009, AMD became the jersey sponsor of the USL expansion team Austin Aztex FC.

In June 2011, HP announced new business and consumer notebooks equipped with the latest versions of AMD APUs – accelerated processing units. AMD will power HP's Intel-based business notebooks as well.

In the spring of 2013, AMD announced that it would be powering all three major next-generation consoles. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are both powered by a custom-built AMD APU, and the Wii U is powered by an AMD GPU. According to AMD, having their processors in all three of these consoles will greatly assist developers with cross-platform development to competing consoles and PCs as well as increased support for their products across the board.

Litigation with Intel See also: AMD v. Intel

AMD has a long history of litigation with former partner and x86 creator Intel.

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, the court has issued subpoenas to major computer manufacturers including Acer, Dell, Lenovo, HP and Toshiba. In November 2009, Intel agreed to pay AMD $1.25bn and renew a five-year patent cross-licensing agreement as part of a deal to settle all outstanding legal disputes between them. Events and publications

Although AMD frequently refuses to provide information about upcoming products and plans, it does hold annual Analyst Days to reveal and explain key future technologies, and to present official technology roadmaps. The event held in mid-year is referred to as "Technology Analyst Day", with its main focus on upcoming technologies and trends. The end-of-year event is referred to as "Financial Analyst Day" and focuses on the financial performance of the company through the previous year.

In addition to these events, AMD also publishes printed media. Publications include the AMD Accelerate and the discontinued AMDEdge. The AMD Accelerate magazine, originally published through Ziff Davis Media, focuses on SME and business applications, while AMD Edge focused on overall technologies from AMD. Since Ziff Davis Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the AMD Accelerate magazine has been published through IDG. AMD also has electronic newsletters to promote its server-oriented Opteron processors and related business solutions.

Guinness World Record Achievement

On August 31, 2011, in Austin, Texas, AMD achieved a Guinness World Record for the "Highest frequency of a computer processor": 8.429 GHz. The company ran an 8-core FX-8150 processor with only one active module (two cores), and cooled with liquid helium. The previous record was 8.308 GHz, with an Intel Celeron 352 (one core).

On November 1, 2011, geek.com reported that Andre Yang, an overclocker from Taiwan, used an FX-8150 to set another record: 8.461 GHz.

Corporate social responsibility

In its 2012 report on progress relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project rated AMD the fifth highest of 24 consumer electronics companies.

Notes

AMD ShangHai Processor AMD: 30 Years of Pursuing the Leader 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/Intel Settlement

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