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Engineers Electronic Engineers Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
| Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) |
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| Written by goldeneggs | |||||||||
| Thursday, 06 November 2008 09:01 | |||||||||
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Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (abbreviated AMD; NYSE: 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 announced a merger with ATI Technologies on Wednesday 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 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. AMD x86 processors Discontinued 8086, 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 AMD's first completely in-house x86 processor was the K5 which was launched in 1995. The "K" was a reference to "Kryptonite" which from comic book lore was the only substance that could harm Superman (a clear reference to Intel which was dominant in the market). NexGen / K6 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. Athlon / K7 Main article: Athlon The K7 was AMD's seventh generation x86 processor, making its debut on June 23, 1999, with the brand name Athlon. Current and future AMD64 / 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. Shortly thereafter it was incorporated into a product for desktop PCs, branded Athlon 64. Dual-core  AMD Athlon(TM) 64 X2 AMD released the first dual core Opteron, an x86-based server CPU, on April 21, 2005.[6] The first desktop-based dual core processor family — the Athlon 64 X2 came a month later.[7]  Die photo of Quad-core processor Quad Core The quad-core 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 a single, dual, and quad-core versions with all cores on one single die. 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 20 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 late-2008 or early-2009. Other platforms and technologies AMD Live!  AMD Live! (TM) AMD LIVE! is a platform marketing initiative focusing the consumer electronics segment. 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, 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 Virtualzation Technology" (also known as IOMMU) specification published using HyperTransport architecture by AMD had updated to version 1.2 , which the first finalized (version 1.0) specification was published prior to Intel's[citation needed]. Commercial initiatives
Alchemy Processors In February 2002, AMD acquired Alchemy Semiconductor and continued its line of processor in MIPS architecture processors, targets the handheld and Portable media player markets. On 13 June 2006, AMD officially announced that the Alchemy processor line was transferred to Raza Microelectronics Inc. Geode processors 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 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 . Mobile platform AMD has started a platform in 2003 aimed for mobile computing, but with less advertisements and promotional schemes, very little was known about the platform, the only known item was the use of mobile Athlon 64 or mobile Sempron processors. As part of the "Better by design" initiative, the open mobile platform, announced Februray 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 are being discussed recently with Puma platform and Griffin processor. Other initiatives
After the merger with 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 Intel chipsets. 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 has planned expansions in their production capacity. In addition to the completion of Fab 36 in Dresden (300 mm 90 nm process SOI), 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, and open a new facility at the Luther Park Technology Campus in Stillwater, New York (likely 300 mm 32 nm process SOI production) between years 2009 to 2010. Current production facilities  AMD Saxony in Dresden, Germany is the major wafer production site 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) 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. 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. As part of its expanding microprocessor design program, AMD started an engineering design center in Bangalore. The AMD India Engineering Center Private Limited will contribute to the design of future generations of AMD microprocessors. The standalone facility will occupy approximately 38,000 square feet (3,500 m²) and is located in Richmond Road, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. AMD also maintains design facilities in Fort Collins (CO), Sunnyvale (CA), Austin (TX), and Boxborough (MA). 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. 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. transfer
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