AMD cuts to the core with 'Bulldozer' Opterons

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Originally Posted by qurious63ss

WOW! So GF giving you guys the chips for free? I know you want to make it sound like it's all positive to go fabless but reality is very different since you are paying per wafer, die whatever and at a premium and GF will now have their own priorities that may not go inline with Amd's so they could push out process shrinks out if they see it in their best interest. I have to wonder how much you are really saving by losing control of your manufacturing and I would love to hear what your old CEO/founder Mr. Sanders feels about Amd's new fabless model.

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I don't think AMD will be paying the equivilant of the $4-5 Billion on wafers, that it costs to build and equip a fab and develop a new process.

What i'm wondering, is what intel plans to do with all their under utilized fabs and employees if and when they fall below %70 market share, and margins start to drop along with them. AMD is much leaner and already at a point where they can operate on much lower margins. intel may have to make some adjustments in their business model also. I'm sure they're preparing to avoid that with whatever means necessary. Here's a few past examples of how they might accomplish that, taken from another forum:

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I'm curious as to what the rules are... Are they written down somewhere? Because by my own ethics meter, I dislike Intel precisely because of the shady crap they've pulled over the 25 or so years I've been in the inudstry. I went from proudly buying my then top-of-the-line 80486DX (50mhz!!) to generally not trusting and at times loathing them.

-The FDIV controversy. If your product is broken, offer to fix it, without the initial public statements of, "You have to prove your CPU is broken and that you actually use your FPU before we'll fix it." (Yes, they backed off on this, but if they'd done the 'right' thing to start with, then we'd be talking about it as a shining example of a company doing the honorable thing rather than the inverse, 16 years later.
-Threatening MB and chipset makers to not use a technically superior product (I'm talking about the K7 launch and the fact that there MB manufacturers were afraid to show a product supporting the K7, and the ones they did did so without markings on the box
-Doing a demo of a 3D game with one of the first dedicated 3D processors (3DFX in this case), which was responsible for a dramatic improvement in the gaming experience, and suggesting via demo that the difference was the anemic (at the time) CPU extensions
-Bribing manufacturers to not use a superior part from a competitor (Dell payoffs, Opteron)
-Changing a benchmark suite by removing the portions of the benchmark that your competitor wins (sysmark 2000 and 2001 fiascos)
-Refusing to use supported extensions on competitor's CPUs

The problem with consumers is, we have a very long memory when it comes to things like this. To this day I still don't use TurboTax, after that DRM stunt they pulled a few years back.

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to name a few

http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/s...t=1226&page=27

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Originally Posted by flippin_waffles

I don't think AMD will be paying the equivilant of the $4-5 Billion on wafers, that it costs to build and equip a fab and develop a new process.

What i'm wondering, is what intel plans to do with all their under utilized fabs and employees if and when they fall below %70 market share, and margins start to drop along with them. AMD is much leaner and already at a point where they can operate on much lower margins. intel may have to make some adjustments in their business model also. I'm sure they're preparing to avoid that with whatever means necessary. Here's a few past examples of how they might accomplish that, taken from another forum:



to name a few

http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/s...t=1226&page=27

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They will do what every company does when they don't need employees or factories layoffs and closures Now will they go fabless? Probably not.

qurious63ss you conveniently avoided my post ;)

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Originally Posted by informal

qurious63ss you conveniently avoided my post ;)

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Sorry, didn't realize it was directed towards me. Yes you make some good points and from an ideal Amd world then it appears that it is a win win for Amd to go fabless, but the things I brought up are possible to no? My point has been that going fabless has its drawbacks, time will tell who is right.

When paying by the wafer vs. buying a fab, by the wafer is higher. However, unless you are running at 100% capacity, you have high sunk costs that can be harder to recoup.

The question is do you believe there is better flexibility in higher fixed costs or higher variable costs. Believe it or not, especially in today's crazy market, there is more flexibility in a variable cost model. Just look at how much debt AMD was able to buy down - FAB = debt and debt chokes off profit. I'd rather hold the cash and direct it at more wafers if I need it.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

When paying by the wafer vs. buying a fab, by the wafer is higher. However, unless you are running at 100% capacity, you have high sunk costs that can be harder to recoup.

The question is do you believe there is better flexibility in higher fixed costs or higher variable costs. Believe it or not, especially in today's crazy market, there is more flexibility in a variable cost model. Just look at how much debt AMD was able to buy down - FAB = debt and debt chokes off profit. I'd rather hold the cash and direct it at more wafers if I need it.

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I agree that variable cost is a good thing, but do you agree that giving up manufacturing of your products, especially one that relies on leading edge tech like processors, has some negative impacts since you loose control of the process and are relying on another company to stay on schedule all this while they are looking out for their best interest before yours. Lets put it this way if the cost to fab in house was the same as to foundry which would you go with? The way I see it, it's a gamble that all boils down to money. You are willing to give up the process in order to save money, while Intel is willing to spend the money in order to control the process. I see no problem with your model when it involves low margin product like flash, chipsets etc. but when it involves processors I would definitely want control of the process to synch with my products.

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Originally Posted by qurious63ss

I agree that variable cost is a good thing, but do you agree that giving up manufacturing of your products, especially one that relies on leading edge tech like processors, has some negative impacts since you loose control of the process and are relying on another company to stay on schedule all this while they are looking out for their best interest before yours. Lets put it this way if the cost to fab in house was the same as to foundry which would you go with? The way I see it, it's a gamble that all boils down to money. You are willing to give up the process in order to save money, while Intel is willing to spend the money in order to control the process. I see no problem with your model when it involves low margin product like flash, chipsets etc. but when it involves processors I would definitely want control of the process to synch with my products.

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Yes, every tansaction has multiple impacts.

When you consider the node/design world, decisions about node and design happen years apart and rely on each other. If GF had 22nm tomorrow, unless their customers were planning on availability on that date, the designs would not be ready. The tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it.

The reality is that these things run together. Generally speaking, GF's roadmap is the same as the old AMD process roadmap would have been. Based on the fact that they are actively selling capacity, they actually have an incentive to get to the node early. If it was only AMD, I would think that GF would line up around AMD's dates, not push to get there earlier.

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Originally Posted by qurious63ss

I have to wonder how much you are really saving by losing control of your manufacturing and I would love to hear what your old CEO/founder Mr. Sanders feels about Amd's new fabless model.

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go on and search some of my posts from the last year, and you'll find quotes from the interview that Sanders gave many years ago! In that interview he has foreseen this future for AMD and has hand picked Hector to make this future come true!

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Originally Posted by qurious63ss

Not trying to discredit Mr. Fruhue, I'm just providing a counter point to his win win comment.

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that's just a point - you can't counter his point unless you have knowledge of an AMD or GloFo insider! What you're writing is based purely on your fact-less subjective POV and can't be used to counter opinions of those who have reliable info of the system with in!

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Originally Posted by qurious63ss

And here is another problem. How much is Amd going to have to pay for what GF is calling "custom" manufacturing?

http://globalfoundries.com/technolog...nced_tech.aspx

As you see from the link, it looks like they are going to be doing a lot of processes at the same time.

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so long GloFo could lead in technology term for contract manufacturing, they won't be mind to do so;
Don't forget they would like to have 50% of the market share in near future.
With advanced manufacturing technology, ARM and other power concern chips would be build out of the latest wafer tech rather than cheapo old tech that consume a lot of power.
More over, AMD didn't wish to withdraw from GloFo completely, but when ATIC injecting more cash into GloFo, AMD just shrink their share percentage only. Nothing to lose.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

The reality is that these things run together. Generally speaking, GF's roadmap is the same as the old AMD process roadmap would have been. Based on the fact that they are actively selling capacity, they actually have an incentive to get to the node early. If it was only AMD, I would think that GF would line up around AMD's dates, not push to get there earlier.

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Hmmm according to an analysts' statement in the eetimes, these things are adversaries:

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Penn pointed out that outsourcing chip companies will, at the very least see wafer prices increasing. At worst they may miss market windows for lack of chips. "In many ways allocation is a bigger problem than prices increasing," said Penn.
The background to Penn's commentary is that, with a lack of investment in manufacturing capacity over the last three years, ASPs are set to rise at the same time as the general economy is recovering.
(...)
With ASPs falling at 2.8 percent CAGR from 2005 to 2009 and the overall chip market effectively stalled between 2004 and 2009 (just 1.1 percent growth) the temptation to slough off high capital costs of manufacturing is easy to see, said Penn. With cheap foundry prices and fabless companies growing fast it was easy to take the view that a fab has no market value and that manufacturing is a sevice that can be outsourced just like test and assembly.

But that is wrong, Penn said. It only holds true when manufacturing capacity is over-supplied.

Many companies will flatter themselves that they have a good relationship with their outsource supplier, but not everyone can be an A-list customer. "If you are not an A-list celebrity you could be delayed access to technology by six months. That could be the difference between success and decay."

Penn favors IDMs that continue to build fabs but use foundries to smooth the cyclic peaks and troughs in demand. The problem is that such models are not in the foundries best interest who see orders being pulled back into the IDM "That's a classic adversarial them and us business model. Clearly not in the foundries' best interests, he said. "The problem is that the investors and bean counters believe it is cheaper to outsource than to build wafers in house."

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http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/s...2600264&pgno=1

The roadmaps might fall together for now, because the new GF roadmap is identical with the old AMD FAB roadmap, furthermore GF is one of the few companies which is building new Fabs (the one in Malta,NY) but again - this is due to the old AMD plans. In the (long) term future, if the connection to AMD is history, there are obvious risks ...

If I would be AMD, I would not sell off all of my remaining GF stocks, just to secure an "A-celebrity" status ;-).

loll all of you guys are arguying with jf-amd the man who's in constant touch with server grade hardware... product prices etc... basicly how to be competitive in a market that deffines the rest of your brand.... this man knows more then you think... give him credit....

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Yes, every tansaction has multiple impacts.

When you consider the node/design world, decisions about node and design happen years apart and rely on each other. If GF had 22nm tomorrow, unless their customers were planning on availability on that date, the designs would not be ready. The tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it.

The reality is that these things run together. Generally speaking, GF's roadmap is the same as the old AMD process roadmap would have been. Based on the fact that they are actively selling capacity, they actually have an incentive to get to the node early. If it was only AMD, I would think that GF would line up around AMD's dates, not push to get there earlier.

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That of course is assuming a certain level of process optimization. Using just a design written in hardware description language like such as VHDL or Verilog, can quickly be ported to the new process. [Admittedly at lower performance than a fully optimized design] Shouldn't logically cost reduction and acceptable performance be the primary targets in the modern desktop/laptop environment rather than performance; which largely has its market in the server world which historically tends to be willing to accept a higher price and a better tuned chip on an older process?

The reality is that interim products are not really cost effective. Let's say that GF suddenly called and said "hey, we can get to 32nm in June." If I have Magny Cours coming out in Q1, and Bulldozer coming out in 2011, trying to do an MC design in the back half of the year on 32nm would net a lot of cost and an unoptimized MC. There might be a small benefit, but by the time I could get the product to market, Bulldozer would probably be a quarter away.

OEM partners would not want to do the full validation (and they do that for every node change) so they would pass on the part.

There just isn't benefit, the most profitable answer is to keep to the roadmap and deliver to that, otherwise you impact everything trying to jam an extra project in.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

The reality is that interim products are not really cost effective. Let's say that GF suddenly called and said "hey, we can get to 32nm in June." If I have Magny Cours coming out in Q1, and Bulldozer coming out in 2011, trying to do an MC design in the back half of the year on 32nm would net a lot of cost and an unoptimized MC. There might be a small benefit, but by the time I could get the product to market, Bulldozer would probably be a quarter away.

OEM partners would not want to do the full validation (and they do that for every node change) so they would pass on the part.

There just isn't benefit, the most profitable answer is to keep to the roadmap and deliver to that, otherwise you impact everything trying to jam an extra project in.

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Perhaps there is a misunderstanding in what was said.
I am suggesting producing an already validated design [Such as current or previous generation design] on a new process node to reduce production costs in the desktop market.
Unless of course you are suggesting that a design written in VHDL or Verilog, does not function as specified.

you know i just tried to find any type of quote or news by the former ceo jerry sanders......either this guy has died, or he does not talk at all.

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Originally Posted by god_43

you know i just tried to find any type of quote or news by the former ceo jerry sanders......either this guy has died, or he does not talk at all.

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Here's a recent one:
http://www.dailytech.com/Former+AMD+...ticle16694.htm

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Jerry Sanders, AMD's co-founder and CEO seemed to blast Mr. Ruiz in a recent interview, stating, "It just doesn't make sense. People make dumb mistakes — talk show hosts having sex with subordinates, at least I understand the sex drive. I don't understand this. You just don't talk about things that aren't public. You don't talk to people about insider information, whether you benefit from it or not."

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He always is good for speaking his mind.

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Originally Posted by nn_step

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding in what was said.
I am suggesting producing an already validated design [Such as current or previous generation design] on a new process node to reduce production costs in the desktop market.
Unless of course you are suggesting that a design written in VHDL or Verilog, does not function as specified.

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My point is that with tight resources, you don't do 2 different designs, just to be ready, in case they are ready early. You have to pick your targets and run with them.

I'd rather have resources working on my next generation project than doubling down on an existing design. It's just about long term vs. short term. But, then again, I am not a desinger, I focus more on the market and I know that putting too much churn on my partners for short term qualifies then they are less likely to want to pick up my products in their lines.

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Originally Posted by qurious63ss

With Amd no longer having a say in GF decisions then there is the possibility that GF could change their focus away from Amd no matter how much Amd keeps GF full, GF will still make decisions based on whats best for GF. Some of their interest will be the same like full capacity but others like shrink cycles and the cost that comes with it might not be so. Again, not saying that this will happen but loosing control of manufacturing has its negatives and this is one of them.

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I agree with you and not with just this post here.
But you have to consider that chances of that happening are reasonably slim in this case. It would be suicide for GF to slack off on process technology innovations at this point. Just consider the situation they're in. They do have a reasonable customer base, although that's only through their merger with Chartered Semiconductors, but they have no proven track record in the fab industry. This currently gives them only one option and that's to prove to their clients that they have the superior process. They need a better process than their competitors and they have to be faster than their competitors in getting large volumes and good yields on this cutting edge process. That's what they currently need to prove themselves in the fab industry.

Then later on they can choose to do what you're saying, namely to slow down on introducing smaller process nodes, but even then it will still be better for them to keep on innovating. That's because margins are much higher in the more recent process nodes than in the older nodes, mainly because there is less competition in the newer nodes as fewer fabs will have mastered it. You might even be the only one for a little while with a newer node.

Then there is one market where there will probably be quite some growth in the coming years and thats in smartphones. This will mean even more chips on the newer process nodes. Just look at Tegra 2 and future Qualcomm SnapDragon chip, all on TSMC's 40 nm node. There will be many many more of these chips in the future and they will all want to use the latest process technologies as that gives them a speed and power consumption advantage. That's another market that's very important for GF and TSMC, one in which they will have to prove which is faster in ramping up new nodes and which has the better performing process.

I can't speak for GF because I don't work for them, but think about the remoteness of the option to move away from AMD.

AMD is their largest customer. You make money in a fab business by keeping the fab running at 100% at all times. That allows you to depreciate the fab quicker and get on to the next process.

Who, exactly, would they replace AMD with? Who else in the business could replace that much business that quickly? If they moved away from AMD, they would have a very expensive fab sitting at low utilization and that would be very costly. GF and AMD have a vested interest in working together. All of the people thinking that somehow this deal is bad for AMD don't really understand how the financial aspects of running a fab work.

Fabs are most profitable when they are at 100% utilization. They have massively high fixed costs, and relatively low variable costs. So the quicker you can run through enough wafers to offset the fixed cost, the quicker you can get to the next node. By having AMD and other companies together GF can keep the fabs running around the clock, diversify their process technologies and increase their access to IP. All of that makes them more competitive.

Dropping customers, running low utilization and starting/stopping the lines will make the fab less profitable. There is a finite number of companies that you can strike a foundry deal with, so the last thing you want to do is lose one of the big dogs.

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Originally Posted by god_43

you know i just tried to find any type of quote or news by the former ceo jerry sanders......either this guy has died, or he does not talk at all.

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http://silicongenesis.stanford.edu/t...ts/sanders.htm

Jerry was just out at the austin campus a few months ago to celebrate the 40th anniversary of AMD

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

My point is that with tight resources, you don't do 2 different designs, just to be ready, in case they are ready early. You have to pick your targets and run with them.

I'd rather have resources working on my next generation project than doubling down on an existing design. It's just about long term vs. short term. But, then again, I am not a designer, I focus more on the market and I know that putting too much churn on my partners for short term qualifies then they are less likely to want to pick up my products in their lines.

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if I am understanding this correctly, drop in replacements would cause churn for the partners and 2 engineers responsible for porting a previous design to a new process is too taxing on resources?

I may be completely mistaken in my view and perhaps am missing a few details; but I've seen students implement microprocessor designs in several different processes with very little effort.

If I go from an Opteron 2435 D0 to an Opteron 2435 D1, my partners have to do a complete re-qual on the processor, that is how they work.

There are notifiable and non-notifiable changes. Doing a rework with HKMG would be a notifiable change to partners and that would force them into a requal. Requals take several months (complete reression testing on all platforms).

There are minor changes that we do that are non-notifiable (typically only touching one layer), but an all-layer change would force more work for partners. Most would not want to take the part based on the amount of work vs. the short life cycle. If I give them Magny Cours in Q1, then HKMG in say Q3 or Q4, with Bulldozer coming in 2011, they would either wait for HKMG (a bad option for us) or they would skip HKMG.

It's an economic decision, not a technical decision. You may see the change as low risk, but OEMs will not. There is too much money on the line.

JF-AMD i am a bit confused as to when documentation on sockets are sent to mobo manufactures, i know someone in a reputed mobo maker and he told me that they have yet to receive any documentation for the G34 socket but have all-ready received some info on LGA 1567.

Is it because AMD will have limited partners making G34 socket based mobo's or is it that the documentation is not released?

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

I can't speak for GF because I don't work for them, but think about the remoteness of the option to move away from AMD.

AMD is their largest customer. You make money in a fab business by keeping the fab running at 100% at all times. That allows you to depreciate the fab quicker and get on to the next process.

Who, exactly, would they replace AMD with? Who else in the business could replace that much business that quickly? If they moved away from AMD, they would have a very expensive fab sitting at low utilization and that would be very costly. GF and AMD have a vested interest in working together. All of the people thinking that somehow this deal is bad for AMD don't really understand how the financial aspects of running a fab work.

Fabs are most profitable when they are at 100% utilization. They have massively high fixed costs, and relatively low variable costs. So the quicker you can run through enough wafers to offset the fixed cost, the quicker you can get to the next node. By having AMD and other companies together GF can keep the fabs running around the clock, diversify their process technologies and increase their access to IP. All of that makes them more competitive.

Dropping customers, running low utilization and starting/stopping the lines will make the fab less profitable. There is a finite number of companies that you can strike a foundry deal with, so the last thing you want to do is lose one of the big dogs.

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Not to nit-pick, b/c I agree with what you are saying, but the "who" that GF could sign would be ARM customers. ARM chips are like grains of sand compared to desktop CPUs. They are everywhere, in everything.

Sign a big enough ARM design (say Qualcomm and cell phone products), and they could potentially load up the fab with no need for AMD.


Just speaking hypothetically, don't flame me for it.

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Originally Posted by ajaidev

JF-AMD i am a bit confused as to when documentation on sockets are sent to mobo manufactures, i know someone in a reputed mobo maker and he told me that they have yet to receive any documentation for the G34 socket but have all-ready received some info on LGA 1567.

Is it because AMD will have limited partners making G34 socket based mobo's or is it that the documentation is not released?

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Not sure what they could be talking about. We go to Taiwan quarterly and have a local office there that works with all of the ODMs and board manufacturers.

I displayed G34 boards last september, Supermicro was showing them off at supercomputing 09 (along with other vendors). Taiwan has had G34 details for close to 24 months by my estimation. I can't say the names of the partners that I personally met with, but I have been there talking about G34 since early 2008.

The folks we talk to are all the usual suspects. All of our OEM partners have been testing G34 for some time now.

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Originally Posted by mstp2009

Not to nit-pick, b/c I agree with what you are saying, but the "who" that GF could sign would be ARM customers. ARM chips are like grains of sand compared to desktop CPUs. They are everywhere, in everything.

Sign a big enough ARM design (say Qualcomm and cell phone products), and they could potentially load up the fab with no need for AMD.


Just speaking hypothetically, don't flame me for it.

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No, you're totally correct, ARM could be a big customer for GF. One of the challenges in having someone like ARM is that on a "per wafer" basis, the revenue *could* be lower. But I don't know any GF details, I am not that close to manufactring operations to know.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

No, you're totally correct, ARM could be a big customer for GF. One of the challenges in having someone like ARM is that on a "per wafer" basis, the revenue *could* be lower. But I don't know any GF details, I am not that close to manufactring operations to know.

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Thanks for all the answers JF, great to have you here! :up:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

No, you're totally correct, ARM could be a big customer for GF. One of the challenges in having someone like ARM is that on a "per wafer" basis, the revenue *could* be lower. But I don't know any GF details, I am not that close to manufactring operations to know.

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You indirectly admitted with that statement that there are risks in the Fab-Light strategy. ;)

As the analyst wrote on eetimes that I quoted in my earlier post, not everybody could be a FAB's No.1 customer.

It is not too far fetched to assume a future situation, where GF has to choose to invest in either a SHP (super high performance) SOI process or a HP bulk process first.

If they choose the HP process and AMD is still using SOI, then AMDs process gap to intel will increase even more ...

I hope that this will never be the case, because GF is now starting to be a big FAB company with many employees; thus they should have sufficient personnel to work in parallel on both approaches ... but who knows.

I hope AMD will sell lots of CPUs to remain GF's No.1 customer ;-)

cheers

O.

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Originally Posted by Opteron146

It is not too far fetched to assume a future situation, where GF has to choose to invest in either a SHP (super high performance) SOI process or a HP bulk process first.

If they choose the HP process and AMD is still using SOI, then AMDs process gap to intel will increase even more ...

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And GF would make less money because of it.

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Originally Posted by Opteron146

I hope AMD will sell lots of CPUs to remain GF's No.1 customer ;-)

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GF hopes that too. That's why they will always try to make AMD as competitive as possible, with the bonus of being able to use whatever process they invested for AMD, with any other client.

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Originally Posted by Opteron146

You indirectly admitted with that statement that there are risks in the Fab-Light strategy. ;)

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Every strategy has risks, there is no risk-free strategy. Building a fab is probably more of a risk than using a foundry.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

If I go from an Opteron 2435 D0 to an Opteron 2435 D1, my partners have to do a complete re-qual on the processor, that is how they work.

There are notifiable and non-notifiable changes. Doing a rework with HKMG would be a notifiable change to partners and that would force them into a requal. Requals take several months (complete reression testing on all platforms).

There are minor changes that we do that are non-notifiable (typically only touching one layer), but an all-layer change would force more work for partners. Most would not want to take the part based on the amount of work vs. the short life cycle. If I give them Magny Cours in Q1, then HKMG in say Q3 or Q4, with Bulldozer coming in 2011, they would either wait for HKMG (a bad option for us) or they would skip HKMG.

It's an economic decision, not a technical decision. You may see the change as low risk, but OEMs will not. There is too much money on the line.

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thank you for clearing that up for me.

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Originally Posted by FlanK3r

JF: There are already (exists) first samples for server Bulldozer? Thx.

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yes, there are bd samples up & running.

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Originally Posted by Oliverda

Yeah, I know that you're a server guy.:)

According to the "tradition" (since K8) AMD always uses its server dies on (high end) desktop.

Italy = Toledo
Santa Rosa = Windsor
Barcelona = Agena
Shanghai = Deneb

The difference is the package and the desktop versions don't support the registered DIMMs.

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The memory controller is identical, therefore both versions support both registered and unbuffered DIMMs. (I've run both registered ECC and unbuffered ECC DIMMs with a Venice core Athlon64, X2 3000+, and Opteron 185. No problems either way.) It's a matter of motherboard support, really.

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Originally Posted by w0mbat

yes, there are bd samples up & running.

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Where are you getting this data?

Last I heard BD was supposed to start sampling this quarter or the next, but I haven't seen any more specific info.

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Originally Posted by hyc

The memory controller is identical, therefore both versions support both registered and unbuffered DIMMs. (I've run both registered ECC and unbuffered ECC DIMMs with a Venice core Athlon64, X2 3000+, and Opteron 185. No problems either way.) It's a matter of motherboard support, really.

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You're right. ;) It's only a BIOS dependent feature.

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Originally Posted by flippin_waffles

I don't think AMD will be paying the equivilant of the $4-5 Billion on wafers, that it costs to build and equip a fab and develop a new process.

http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/s...t=1226&page=27

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Foundries, though, pay these costs and, as business, they also want to be profitable. Therefore, the fab build (Capital expenditures) are paid, depreciated, and recouped by billing those costs into the costs of the wafers they sell to their customers.

The GloFo maneuver only works if the resulting foundry can keep utilization at high as possible spread over many customers (the more the better). If AMD were GloFo's only customer (this is hypothetical, because this is certainly not the case) and GloFo was on a mandate for profit, ultimately costs to AMD would be higher not lower due to the spin off. This is why many analysts were skeptical of the spin off approach, if GloFo did not retain any new customers, ultimately AMD would be paying that 4-5 billion for a fab and development costs as it would have been built into the price GloFo would charge them per wafer.

The concept is that the capital expenditure costs necessary to run a fab is spread over several customers, such that the total wafer costs are lower per customer than if they tried going it alone. This requires as many customers as you can secure and selling all your capacity to run at high efficiency.

this website has a lot of information, they also have some nice slides....pdf's only seem to work if you access them from the non translated page?


http://translate.google.ca/translate...%26tbs%3Dqdr:d

The pics work in the translation if you click on them, and not the PDF link in the text.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Where are you getting this data?

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incredible india

hope u cant check my ip ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by w0mbat

incredible india

hope u cant check my ip ;)

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:rofl:

wombat: whau! and :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by w0mbat

incredible india

hope u cant check my ip ;)

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LOL :clap:

:rofl:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by w0mbat

incredible india

hope u cant check my ip ;)

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Don't need to check your IP, but if I were you I would check your sources.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Don't need to check your IP, but if I were you I would check your sources.

---

JF may I ask you what are your biggest hopes & goals when it comes to the new CPU architecture?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shadov

JF may I ask you what are your biggest hopes & goals when it comes to the new CPU architecture?

---

prolly that he can sell his wares without his competitor coercing his customers to limit volume/platforms to a certain number. :D:D:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shadov

JF may I ask you what are your biggest hopes & goals when it comes to the new CPU architecture?

---

Scalability
Power efficiency
Value

That is what I care about. Not really concerned about how it handles cinebench or povray or the other "benchmarks".

When I talk to customers they just want stuff that works. And they want value. And they want things to be easy. It's actually a pretty simple world out there from that aspect.

My favorite example is the fact that I changed from tivo to windows media center. WMC is 10X more powerful, does such a better job of handling movies, music and other things. Much easier to use netflix.

But tivo was rock solid.

I just like things that work.

would modularity fit under scalability? i.e. changes in cache size, adding an APU, or other uarch tweaks.

i totally agree with you opinion on scalability. an architecture is useless with out it. if designs are not reused or recycled in some way then you will never make a profit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wuttz

prolly that he can sell his wares without his competitor coercing his customers to limit volume/platforms to a certain number. :D:D:D

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before posting, ask yourself if your post contributes to the thread.;)

Yes, modularity is important, that was the basis of the design.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Don't need to check your IP, but if I were you I would check your sources.

---

why? cause i already had a running system in front of me? the source is me as i am in india.

no offence JF, but u said there wont be any 6-core desktop cpus when we already where running these things :p:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by w0mbat

why? cause i already had a running system in front of me? the source is me as i am in india.

no offence JF, but u said there wont be any 6-core desktop cpus when we already where running these things :p:

---

Well, I work for AMD and i can tell you that you don't have a bulldozer system running in front of you.

And I don't recall saying that there will not be 6-core desktops. What I said was Istanbul is a server die and will not be a desktop die.

As you are probably aware I am a server guy so I don't comment on desktop plans. I just happed to know that they were not taking our die and that Istanbul was going to remain server only.

Thuban does not use server die. It has features that we don't have and we have features that they don't have.

I feel that w0mbat will get urge to post some scrshots :D
After all he has certain reputation when it comes to reliability of his posts!

Yeah he'll need to hide in Himalayas after that, but ho cares! Fun factor is what counts :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

I feel that w0mbat will get urge to post some scrshots :D
After all he has certain reputation when it comes to reliability of his posts!

Yeah he'll need to hide in Himalayas after that, but ho cares! Fun factor is what counts :D

---

Seconded!

I have very high regard of both JF-AMD and w0mbat when it comes to AMD products.
Obviously J.F. you are AMD's server product face and you need to protect company secrets which is completely understandable!
To be hones I've learned few things how corporations operate from your posts, which is great!
On the other hand w0mbat is a cool forum fellow which I indirectly know for few years now. He always was quite credible in his predictions/leaks and thanks to him and persons alike these forums are what they are for me! Very interesting places to be and exchange informations!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

I feel that w0mbat will get urge to post some scrshots :D
After all he has certain reputation when it comes to reliability of his posts!

Yeah he'll need to hide in Himalayas after that, but ho cares! Fun factor is what counts :D

---

Maybe he is talking about Magny Cours, that is in production now and lots of people have them in their hands....


Screenshots can be faked. Instead, post a picture of the bulldozer processor itself. Every processor we have has the markings on the top.

Pre-production parts have a special model number that, unless you actually had one in your hands, you probably couldn't guess.

The old barcelona I have sitting on my desk at work isn't an "OS23xxxxxxx" model number, IIRC it is something like "ZVX140xxxxx"

So, pictures please. Or, if you are not comfortable posting pictures, give me the OPN on the lid.

I can guarantee, with very high accuracy, that you will not have that number.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Well, I work for AMD and i can tell you that you don't have a bulldozer system running in front of you.

And I don't recall saying that there will not be 6-core desktops. What I said was Istanbul is a server die and will not be a desktop die.

As you are probably aware I am a server guy so I don't comment on desktop plans. I just happed to know that they were not taking our die and that Istanbul was going to remain server only.

Thuban does not use server die. It has features that we don't have and we have features that they don't have.

---

excuse me, but if amd really created a seperate die for desktop 6core chips they are plain stupid... :D sorry, but seriously...
with the limited rnd money they have i HIGHLY doubt they use different silicon for server and desktop 6core chips... it makes no sense at all as the differences in silicon are tiny :P

i know that both amd and intel dont want customers to think desktop and server parts are actually the same with a different sticker on the box for obvious reasons... but come on...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Maybe he is talking about Magny Cours, that is in production now and lots of people have them in their hands....


Screenshots can be faked. Instead, post a picture of the bulldozer processor itself. Every processor we have has the markings on the top.

Pre-production parts have a special model number that, unless you actually had one in your hands, you probably couldn't guess.

The old barcelona I have sitting on my desk at work isn't an "OS23xxxxxxx" model number, IIRC it is something like "ZVX140xxxxx"

So, pictures please. Or, if you are not comfortable posting pictures, give me the OPN on the lid.

I can guarantee, with very high accuracy, that you will not have that number.

---

why would he do that? so he exposes himself or his source and can be legally prosecuted? who cares about model and serial numbers? :shrug:

and it wouldnt make sense if amd already had bulldozer silicon but wouldnt share it with their close partners/customers... and amd said they already had working samples in their labs and didnt they even mention they were shipping samples to customers?

The dies are based on the same architecture, but each has different features added. It is not a "grounds up" design, they are based on the same thing. But you can't put an istanbul in an AM3 and call it thuban because there are different features.

As to whether someone has an actual bulldozer running, let me just propose this thought: The guy who would know a.) there were silicon available and b.) if any of that silicon was outside of our walls, is saying that someone can't have silicon in their hands.

I obviously can't comment on specifics, but, if someone was wondering whether there was actually silicon outside of AMD's walls, they might want to put slightly more faith on the person who has access to the master schedules, no?

Everyone can believe whatever they want. It's not the laws of intellectual property that are at debate here, it's the laws of time and physics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

The dies are based on the same architecture, but each has different features added. It is not a "grounds up" design, they are based on the same thing. But you can't put an istanbul in an AM3 and call it thuban because there are different features.

---

if you have the tools and access codes to re-fuse the die, i bet you could ;)

all departments that are going to sell the part under one name or another will throw in what features they want/need and the final design will be a compromise between all of that, and then each team will fuse things on or off and bin according to what they need want to create a product out of that molten chunk of sand somebody sneezed hazardous metals on :D

different features, yes, different silicon, no...
i refuse to believe amd is wasting rnd resources on such a useless effort... you dont create a new set of multi million us$ lito masks because less than 1% of the silicon is slightly different... and if you do, then your either making lots of money with it (not the case last time i checked, no offense!) or your really REALLY bad at managing your rnd and mfc budget :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

As to whether someone has an actual bulldozer running, let me just propose this thought: The guy who would know a.) there were silicon available and b.) if any of that silicon was outside of our walls, is saying that someone can't have silicon in their hands.

I obviously can't comment on specifics, but, if someone was wondering whether there was actually silicon outside of AMD's walls, they might want to put slightly more faith on the person who has access to the master schedules, no?

Everyone can believe whatever they want. It's not the laws of intellectual property that are at debate here, it's the laws of time and physics.

---

hey, im not saying your lying to us! ive read quite some of your posts and seen some interviews and you seem like a very honest and nice guy :toast:

but i dont trust that you were informed about everything that goes on... again, no offense... but telling you about something you dont need to know, especially SINCE you are a honest and straightforward guy, would be risky, or at least according to some top guys at amd i guess it could be considered risky.

and correct me if im wrong, but didnt you say something along the lines of "i cant comment on anything past the next xxx months cause thats all i need to know and thus thats all my superiors let me know" during an interview some time ago?

please dont take any offense by what i wrote, i hope i dont sound rude or harsh... and thanks for being so straight forward and honest and sticking around here... it helps to improve amds image as a company that is aware of what is going on around it and listens to the market and customers... something that was lost during the reign of senor ruin errrrr i mean ruiz ;)

No offense taken. It's just that I know silicon schedules. I know the milestones to ~ the end of 2011 at this point. I know Bulldozer schedules well and don't really care to know the follow on product's schedules because that is outside of my horizon.

The earliest silicon comes in with ~1-2 wafers worth of product. These are extremely valuable and have the highest security. A company is going to know exactly where every one of them is (early silicon is always locked away in a lab). They are all internal, they don't go to partners. Highest scrutiny.

When you get to EVT silicon, now, you are building ~1000 or so units. Could one or two get into the wrong hands? Sure. Do these go outside of the company? Yes.

EVT is generally ~6 months prior to launch. If I am launching in 2011, there is pretty good odds that I am not at EVT level silicon, right? So, IF I had silicon (not confirming or denying), it would be locked away in the highest security internal lab, only a few folks would have access to it, and it would all be accounted for. At that point it is critical that every single piece is either in a system, or a tester, not just laying around. People would notice one missing and it would be a big deal.

Yesterday I was in the power lab (watch for a video in the future) and there were plenty of Magny Cours laying around. I picked one up out of the tray for the video. That would never happen with Bulldozer. I doubt they would even let me in the lab, I have no business in there; pretty sure my badge wouldn't work ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Maybe he is talking about Magny Cours, that is in production now and lots of people have them in their hands....

---

well the thing about someones reputation is based on the facts that he knows exactly what does he talking about, and w0mbat certainly doesn't have reputation of being n00b ;)

Quote:

---

Screenshots can be faked. Instead, post a picture of the bulldozer processor itself. Every processor we have has the markings on the top.

---

Again there's certain trust that someone is posting true pictures. eg. people know that say... chew* or Sampsa, or saaya... and bunch of other people would never post faked pictures... and w0mbat is in that trustworthy group...

Quote:

---

Pre-production parts have a special model number that, unless you actually had one in your hands, you probably couldn't guess.

---

I know I had some Agenas - they've end-up being bellowed gifts, after polishing and photo engraving ;)

Quote:

---

The old barcelona I have sitting on my desk at work isn't an "OS23xxxxxxx" model number, IIRC it is something like "ZVX140xxxxx"
So, pictures please. Or, if you are not comfortable posting pictures, give me the OPN on the lid.
I can guarantee, with very high accuracy, that you will not have that number.

---

No one who has access to the any type of NDA samples will not post picture with OPN ;)

So, point of my quoting is that we have brilliant situation where trustworthy member is in the position of losing hard earned credibility 'cos other member with equal level of reliability is daring him to prove its trustworthiness... this has huge potential in terms of forum communities importance in contemporary marketing and PR strategies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

excuse me, but if amd really created a seperate die for desktop 6core chips they are plain stupid... :D sorry, but seriously...
with the limited rnd money they have i HIGHLY doubt they use different silicon for server and desktop 6core chips... it makes no sense at all as the differences in silicon are tiny :P

---

don't think you've understud JF correctly! He was speaking about silicon features, not the separate MASK that is used to create Server/Desktop part!

Mask is the same, but production recipe and Enabled/Disabled features ARE different (eg. desktop part doesn't need snoop filter part of the L3)!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

As to whether someone has an actual bulldozer running, let me just propose this thought: The guy who would know a.) there were silicon available and b.) if any of that silicon was outside of our walls, is saying that someone can't have silicon in their hands.
I obviously can't comment on specifics, but, if someone was wondering whether there was actually silicon outside of AMD's walls, they might want to put slightly more faith on the person who has access to the master schedules, no?

---

So there IS silicon INSIDE walls? ;) j/k

Quote:

---

Everyone can believe whatever they want. It's not the laws of intellectual property that are at debate here, it's the laws of time and physics.

---

I'll personally believe ONLY when Dirk say what there is and what there's not!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

different features, yes, different silicon, no...
i refuse to believe amd is wasting rnd resources on such a useless effort... you dont create a new set of multi million us$ lito masks because less than 1% of the silicon is slightly different... and if you do, then your either making lots of money with it (not the case last time i checked, no offense!) or your really REALLY bad at managing your rnd and mfc budget :P

---

Behind this statement I expect knowledge of:
a) leading the manufacturing process of highly integratet x86 processing units
b) economics management of the "a"

So saaya any backgrounds on these departments in your CV? ;)

Quote:

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but i dont trust that you were informed about everything that goes on... again, no offense... but telling you about something you don't need to know, especially SINCE you are a honest and straightforward guy, would be risky, or at least according to some top guys at amd i guess it could be considered risky.

---

I'd say that JF has extensife knowledge of what he knows, can knows, does say and can say... it's not like he's with in the company for the same time as being member of this forum ;)

Quote:

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and correct me if im wrong, but didnt you say something along the lines of "i cant comment on anything past the next xxx months cause thats all i need to know and thus thats all my superiors let me know" during an interview some time ago?

---

so now you've busted his neat excuse not to use boring "no comment" ;)

Quote:

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please dont take any offense by what i wrote, i hope i dont sound rude or harsh... and thanks for being so straight forward and honest and sticking around here... it helps to improve amds image as a company that is aware of what is going on around it and listens to the market and customers... something that was lost during the reign of senor ruin errrrr i mean ruiz ;)

---

I think that JF has figured out that this is the forum with the best crew that really appreciate his posts and the fact that he is so proactive, although we don't hassle with server parts here ;)


Oh and I just recollected one person name who was proactive in spreading Iranian freedom movement, on some other social community service... but the problem is he's not in India :cool:

BTW
I don't believe that w0mbat will post any pictures ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

No offense taken. It's just that I know silicon schedules. I know the milestones to ~ the end of 2011 at this point. I know Bulldozer schedules well and don't really care to know the follow on product's schedules because that is outside of my horizon.
fixed...

The earliest silicon comes in with ~1-2 wafers worth of product. These are extremely valuable and have the highest security. A company is going to know exactly where every one of them is (early silicon is always locked away in a lab). They are all internal, they don't go to partners. Highest scrutiny.

When you get to EVT silicon, now, you are building ~1000 or so units. Could one or two get into the wrong hands? Sure. Do these go outside of the company? Yes.

EVT is generally ~6 months prior to launch. If I am launching in 2011, there is pretty good odds that I am not at EVT level silicon, right? So, IF I had silicon (not confirming or denying), it would be locked away in the highest security internal lab, only a few folks would have access to it, and it would all be accounted for. At that point it is critical that every single piece is either in a system, or a tester, not just laying around. People would notice one missing and it would be a big deal.

Yesterday I was in the power lab (watch for a video in the future) and there were plenty of Magny Cours laying around. I picked one up out of the tray for the video. That would never happen with Bulldozer. I doubt they would even let me in the lab, I have no business in there; pretty sure my badge wouldn't work ;)

---

developing this post in full blown blog would be AWESOME! :up:

Are there any AMD labs in India? :P

But seriously I understand what JF-AMD means, working as an accountant there are some levels of information you simply must track from beginning to end and I can't imagine how a few working samples of BD would go unaccounted or distributed without extensive knowledge about it. Now the question is whether the decision to distribute/test these samples elsewhere of AMD labs is always known to JF.

As he claimed, the AMD labs where BD are kept so far stand out of his jurisdiction so perhaps there has been internal decisions to test these samples outside? Therefore putting an actual explanation to the question: do you work with engineers/labs in India in any form?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

No offense taken. It's just that I know silicon schedules. I know the milestones to ~ the end of 2011 at this point. I know Bulldozer schedules well and don't really care to know the follow on product's schedules because that is outside of my horizon.

The earliest silicon comes in with ~1-2 wafers worth of product. These are extremely valuable and have the highest security. A company is going to know exactly where every one of them is (early silicon is always locked away in a lab). They are all internal, they don't go to partners. Highest scrutiny.

When you get to EVT silicon, now, you are building ~1000 or so units. Could one or two get into the wrong hands? Sure. Do these go outside of the company? Yes.

EVT is generally ~6 months prior to launch. If I am launching in 2011, there is pretty good odds that I am not at EVT level silicon, right? So, IF I had silicon (not confirming or denying), it would be locked away in the highest security internal lab, only a few folks would have access to it, and it would all be accounted for. At that point it is critical that every single piece is either in a system, or a tester, not just laying around. People would notice one missing and it would be a big deal.

Yesterday I was in the power lab (watch for a video in the future) and there were plenty of Magny Cours laying around. I picked one up out of the tray for the video. That would never happen with Bulldozer. I doubt they would even let me in the lab, I have no business in there; pretty sure my badge wouldn't work ;)

---

Nicely said

However, since you are saying its possible to be at the EVT level silicon (not confirming or denying) then those ~1000 units may be spread out in different places of the world, yet locked up under tight security with only a very few number of people with access to it regardless of where it is. So is the possibility zero that in some part of the world, some engineer showed it to someone?

Just wondering. More so since his rep is right up there IMO

whau, i was 5 hous off and now is here very interresting discussion :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nedjo

don't think you've understud JF correctly! He was speaking about silicon features, not the separate MASK that is used to create Server/Desktop part!

Mask is the same, but production recipe and Enabled/Disabled features ARE different (eg. desktop part doesn't need snoop filter part of the L3)!

---

well he didnt clearly say it ;) :D
and fusing doesnt make it a different chip, it makes it a different SKU or part or bin... but a lot of articles and pr talk mentioned the two 6 cores as different chips...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

When you get to EVT silicon, now, you are building ~1000 or so units. Could one or two get into the wrong hands? Sure. Do these go outside of the company? Yes.

EVT is generally ~6 months prior to launch. If I am launching in 2011, there is pretty good odds that I am not at EVT level silicon, right? So, IF I had silicon (not confirming or denying), it would be locked away in the highest security internal lab, only a few folks would have access to it, and it would all be accounted for. At that point it is critical that every single piece is either in a system, or a tester, not just laying around. People would notice one missing and it would be a big deal.

---

only 6 months? there have been leaked samples more than 6 months before the launches in the past... and isnt bulldozer supposed to launch in early 2011 if not end of this year? in that case EVT would have started recently or would be well under way...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

well he didnt clearly say it ;) :D
and fusing doesnt make it a different chip, it makes it a different SKU or part or bin... but a lot of articles and pr talk mentioned the two 6 cores as different chips...

---

JF was talking about different functions from the start, additonally Lisbon (-> Thuban) is supposed to be different from Istanbul.

Though you always see what you want in order to support your interpretation. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Yesterday I was in the power lab (watch for a video in the future) and there were plenty of Magny Cours laying around. I picked one up out of the tray for the video. That would never happen with Bulldozer. I doubt they would even let me in the lab, I have no business in there; pretty sure my badge wouldn't work ;)

---

Sounds to me like w0mbat's badge is working for doors that are closed to you ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

developing this post in full blown blog would be AWESOME! :up:

---

I could do that, it's pretty simple since I have to run through the silicon with each launch. Let me make that a "post MC launch" blog, I have a bunch of ones in process including one that went live this past week.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dimitriman

Are there any AMD labs in India? :P

But seriously I understand what JF-AMD means, working as an accountant there are some levels of information you simply must track from beginning to end and I can't imagine how a few working samples of BD would go unaccounted or distributed without extensive knowledge about it. Now the question is whether the decision to distribute/test these samples elsewhere of AMD labs is always known to JF.

As he claimed, the AMD labs where BD are kept so far stand out of his jurisdiction so perhaps there has been internal decisions to test these samples outside? Therefore putting an actual explanation to the question: do you work with engineers/labs in India in any form?

---

Yes, we have development in India, they're awesome folks, I think they did a lot of the Istanbul work, very solid team. But, I am pretty sure that first silicon does not land there, as they are a design organization as I understand it. First silicon goes to test organizations.

The issue is that if we were going to "leak" parts out, it would actually be my call as the director of marketing. And I can tell you that I wouldn't approve that. Especially early Bulldozer silicon. Trust me, the first rev is always pretty rough relative to the final (except Istanbul where first silicon was final silicon.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Opteron146

Sounds to me like w0mbat's badge is working for doors that are closed to you ;)

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Well, maybe he could email me on the company email system then with the OPN, right?

:rolleyes:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shadov

JF was talking about different functions from the start, additonally Lisbon (-> Thuban) is supposed to be different from Istanbul.

Though you always see what you want in order to support your interpretation. ;)

---

So Lisbon and Thuban are different. I am not aware if this is a different mask or a fusing option. My gut would tell me a mask difference because they don't want HT Assist (it's really not of value for single processors).

We will all use the same cores and memory controllers, but there are distinct difference. Based on the feature sets, that would lead me to guess that they are different masks. But I don't work in development so I can't say for sure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Well, maybe he could email me on the company email system then with the OPN, right?

:rolleyes:

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only if there's one engraved on IHS... if there's IHS at all ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Well, maybe he could email me on the company email system then with the OPN, right?

---

I think you underestimate his mental capabilities by a quite high margin :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JF-AMD

So Lisbon and Thuban are different. I am not aware if this is a different mask or a fusing option. My gut would tell me a mask difference because they don't want HT Assist (it's really not of value for single processors).

We will all use the same cores and memory controllers, but there are distinct difference. Based on the feature sets, that would lead me to guess that they are different masks. But I don't work in development so I can't say for sure.

---

HT Assist, as I recalled somewhere, can be turned on or off by BIOS.
So no big deal.

Using different mask will be a huge waste.
Even Intel does the same thing (server / mobile / desktop - 1 mask for all).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Yes, we have development in India, they're awesome folks, I think they did a lot of the Istanbul work, very solid team. But, I am pretty sure that first silicon does not land there, as they are a design organization as I understand it. First silicon goes to test organizations.

The issue is that if we were going to "leak" parts out, it would actually be my call as the director of marketing. And I can tell you that I wouldn't approve that. Especially early Bulldozer silicon. Trust me, the first rev is always pretty rough relative to the final (except Istanbul where first silicon was final silicon.)

---

So, rev. x0 means first silicon = final silicon?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

only 6 months? there have been leaked samples more than 6 months before the launches in the past... and isnt bulldozer supposed to launch in early 2011 if not end of this year? in that case EVT would have started recently or would be well under way...

---

We have said 2011, not early 2011. I have to be very careful with my words because I cannot indicate when in 2011 the product will launch.

EVT is 6 months prior to launch, generally speaking. I can't get into any other product team's schedules, but for servers it is 6 months. If EVT started we would be launching in Q3 2010, and that is NOT the case.

A wafer generally takes ~13 weeks from start to finish. Once you receive parts they go through several steps that I will not reveal, then they land in our labs. We do some things to them from a test/qual perspective, and then, when they pass a certain % of qualification they are deemed EVT and sent on to our major partners.

The challenge here is that I have to be careful about what I say. People start doing the math to figure out where we are in the cycle. I am guessing that the original comment was started in that manner. Someone was hoping I would say they were wrong and indicate WHY they could not have samples. With an understanding of the process one could figure out where we are. Which is why I have stuck to "can't be true" and have not said any more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by qcmadness

So, rev. x0 means first silicon = final silicon?

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Not necessarily. There are major and minor steppings and sub steppings below that.

Istanbul is D0, for instance, but Shanghai was C3 if I remember correctly. Sometimes you launch with x1 and do a stepping to x2 in midlife. You can't tell final silicon based on the revs.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

We have said 2011, not early 2011. I have to be very careful with my words because I cannot indicate when in 2011 the product will launch.

EVT is 6 months prior to launch, generally speaking. I can't get into any other product team's schedules, but for servers it is 6 months. If EVT started we would be launching in Q3 2010, and that is NOT the case.

A wafer generally takes ~13 weeks from start to finish. Once you receive parts they go through several steps that I will not reveal, then they land in our labs. We do some things to them from a test/qual perspective, and then, when they pass a certain % of qualification they are deemed EVT and sent on to our major partners.

The challenge here is that I have to be careful about what I say. People start doing the math to figure out where we are in the cycle. I am guessing that the original comment was started in that manner. Someone was hoping I would say they were wrong and indicate WHY they could not have samples. With an understanding of the process one could figure out where we are. Which is why I have stuck to "can't be true" and have not said any more.

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Is bulldozer ahead of your internal schedule?

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Not necessarily. There are major and minor steppings and sub steppings below that.

Istanbul is D0, for instance, but Shanghai was C3 if I remember correctly. Sometimes you launch with x1 and do a stepping to x2 in midlife. You can't tell final silicon based on the revs.

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Shanghai has C2. Deneb has both C2 and C3.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

The issue is that if we were going to "leak" parts out, it would actually be my call as the director of marketing. And I can tell you that I wouldn't approve that. Especially early Bulldozer silicon. Trust me, the first rev is always pretty rough relative to the final (except Istanbul where first silicon was final silicon.)

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IMHO there are pro/cons for both approach. No doubt non-leaking is better 'cos it's safe bet.
But There's always probability of repeating the SledgeHammer scenario with EVT (or was it ES) that was published on Xbit labs!
Result of that leakage was really steamed off and lowered expectations towards the K8!
But when final SKU has hit the market and the media, everyone was blown out!
Don't believe it was planned, but it did turned out great.
Again that doesn't necessarily mean it is easily repeatable, and controllable... so no-leaking is always better way.

On the Istanbul - yeah brilliant part and execution! I don't recall any other "0" revision that has gone in sales like Istanbul's D0

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Originally Posted by qcmadness

HT Assist, as I recalled somewhere, can be turned on or off by BIOS.
So no big deal.

Using different mask will be a huge waste.
Even Intel does the same thing (server / mobile / desktop - 1 mask for all).

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Yes it can be turned off in BIOS, but by not laying out the circuitry and reducing the paths, what if you can get to higher clocks?

There is enough variance that I know you can't take a lisbon and make it a thuban, and vice versa. That is all I can say.

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Originally Posted by qcmadness

Is bulldozer ahead of your internal schedule?

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I would never comment on that. It we were ahead of schedule I would need to have PR, the lawyers and everyone else give me the clearance. Comments like that can impact the stock price, and I don't look good in stripes, they make me look fat.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Not necessarily. There are major and minor steppings and sub steppings below that.

Istanbul is D0, for instance, but Shanghai was C3 if I remember correctly. Sometimes you launch with x1 and do a stepping to x2 in midlife. You can't tell final silicon based on the revs.

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JF-AMD,

Is their an official date yet for the release of the C32 socket? I am hoping to see some reasonably priced dual socket motherboards for desktop workstations (engineering simulations, cad, etc)

Thanks

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

IMHO there are pro/cons for both approach. No doubt non-leaking is better 'cos it's safe bet.
But There's always probability of repeating the SledgeHammer scenario with EVT (or was it ES) that was published on Xbit labs!
Result of that leakage was really steamed off and lowered expectations towards the K8!
But when final SKU has hit the market and the media, everyone was blown out!
Don't believe it was planned, but it did turned out great.
Again that doesn't necessarily mean it is easily repeatable, and controllable... so no-leaking is always better way.

On the Istanbul - yeah brilliant part and execution! I don't recall any other "0" revision that has gone in sales like Istanbul's D0

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Leaks are a double edged sword. My personal preferece is not to do them, so generally speaking, if you see Opteron on the streets before launch, it's really good odds that I am sitting in my cube steaming about it and not happy. Or on a damn plane, which is probably more likely :(

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Originally Posted by trueblue

JF-AMD,

Is their an official date yet for the release of the C32 socket? I am hoping to see some reasonably priced dual socket motherboards for desktop workstations (engineering simulations, cad, etc)

Thanks

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We wil be launching in Q2. We don't release actual dates.

Amazing posts on the subject JF-AMD! You explained it very well how stuff works in some parts of your business :up:

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

IMHO there are pro/cons for both approach. No doubt non-leaking is better 'cos it's safe bet.
But There's always probability of repeating the SledgeHammer scenario with EVT (or was it ES) that was published on Xbit labs!
Result of that leakage was really steamed off and lowered expectations towards the K8!
But when final SKU has hit the market and the media, everyone was blown out!
Don't believe it was planned, but it did turned out great.
Again that doesn't necessarily mean it is easily repeatable, and controllable... so no-leaking is always better way.

On the Istanbul - yeah brilliant part and execution! I don't recall any other "0" revision that has gone in sales like Istanbul's D0

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We have got another rev. x0. It is also a D0, Winchester.

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Originally Posted by trueblue

JF-AMD,

Is their an official date yet for the release of the C32 socket? I am hoping to see some reasonably priced dual socket motherboards for desktop workstations (engineering simulations, cad, etc)

Thanks

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C32 definitely deserves more spotlight (or at least photo sessions that G34 had ;) )

IMHO push for bringing C32 on desktop/workstation market would be of great help for "sweet-spot" strategy on the server market. Making necessary steps in that direction would ultimately bring down BOM of C32 mobos making them choice for server and desktop markets...
that's page from LGA1366 book worth copying ;)

Well that's just wishing now, and the best we can hope for is that mobo makers will build affordable ATX mobos for C32 Opterons... but we can always hope that Zambezi will be C32 compliant ;)

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Leaks are a double edged sword. My personal preferece is not to do them, so generally speaking, if you see Opteron on the streets before launch, it's really good odds that I am sitting in my cube steaming about it and not happy. Or on a damn plane, which is probably more likely :(

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like this e-bay thing with MC? Well that haven't gone down the south so badly!? It was quite interesting from this side of screen, but I can imagine how was it from cube/plane perspective! :shakes:

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Originally Posted by qcmadness

We have got another rev. x0. It is also a D0, Winchester.

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Actually, all final silicon should be to the same grade, so whether you get it right the first time, or 3 spins later, the end product should be the same.

And, fyi, with each spin the engineers usually figure out how to tweak slightly more performance or make something slightly better. In that instance, having first rev go to market could be seen as a negative by some.

wow...16 pages is a lot!

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Originally Posted by god_43

wow...16 pages is a lot!

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waiting for w0mbat's reply....

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Originally Posted by god_43

wow...16 pages is a lot!

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16 pages. 16 cores.

I would categorize it as "just enough"

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

16 pages. 16 cores.

I would categorize it as "just enough"

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Perhaps 20-years from now this will be quoted like Bill Gates "640K ought to be enough for anybody." when we have 1000+ cores? :)

This is very intresting thread.

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Originally Posted by ilkkahy

Perhaps 20-years from now this will be quoted like Bill Gates "640K ought to be enough for anybody." when we have 1000+ cores? :)

This is very intresting thread.

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No one would ever say anything is enough today
because all have learn from Mr. Gates

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Originally Posted by qcmadness

We have got another rev. x0. It is also a D0, Winchester.

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Lame ... seems like you forgot the golden generation:

K8 C0 aka Sledegehammer :bounces:

These were the first Athlon64 (K8 Opteron launched earlier with B3).

Concerning Orochi's release ... I would not hold my breath. Doing some "math" by comparing it to old schedules is not suitable, either. It is a brand new architecture, thus it is very likely that the engineers has to debug more than the usual stuff after a shrink or a new x-core K10 Design.

Anybody who remebers the K8 release ? Back than AMD needed ~2 years from first silicon to launch. Actually that would be the best comparison.

Anyways, the time from tape-out / first silicon to time-to-market will be longer in any case, as one or two more spins could be necessary.

Furthermore I guess AMD learned from last time that it is not good to rush e.g. a B2 design to the market (hint: TLB ...)

Historically seen, we should wait for Orochi C0/C1, that was IMO so far always the first usable (for desktop OCers and performance freaks) silicon.

Ax is first silicon with logical & performance bugs, Bx has still some performance bugs (hopefully all important logic bugs are solved..) and just with Cx everything is (more or less) ironed out.

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Originally Posted by qcmadness

Using different mask will be a huge waste.
Even Intel does the same thing (server / mobile / desktop - 1 mask for all).

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No - it depends on the market volume.
If we are talking high-volume, then an extra mask pays off.

That's why Intel had dedicated C2D masks for dies with 3MB L2, instead of 6MB, and why AMD had back in the days dedicated K8 Newcastle mask with only one Hypertransport link instead of three and 512kB L2 instead of 1 MB.

Nowadays AMD also has the cache-less K10 Propus die for the high-volume market.

However, I do not think that Thuban is considered to be high-volume, too. Thus I also believe that it has to be the same die as Valencia's with the server stuff fused off. But let's wait and see ...

cheers

O.

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

if we were going to "leak" parts out, it would actually be my call as the director of marketing.

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i think you overestimate your control over that matter :D
or your talking about a controlled leak... :)

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Originally Posted by JF-AMD

Yes it can be turned off in BIOS, but by not laying out the circuitry and reducing the paths, what if you can get to higher clocks?

There is enough variance that I know you can't take a lisbon and make it a thuban, and vice versa. That is all I can say.

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different package i guess... :D

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Originally Posted by saaya

i think you overestimate your control over that matter :D
or your talking about a controlled leak... :)

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There are 2 types of leaks, controlled and uncontrolled. At this phase of the process, any leak would have to be a controlled leak. I would own that decision and my decision would always be no. I generally do not see the value because the silicon is nowhere near final. Enterprise customers make decisions on final silicon.

Once you get to EVT there is a risk of uncontrolled leak, and when you get to DVT that risk increases even more. Those I have no control over, but those phases are still a ways away.

I do enjoy AMD's "civil construction tool" processor cores so far..

Hopefully Bulldozer will live up to what Sledgehammer & Clawhammer achieved:p:.

1. its not outside amd
2. im not marketing
3. even the idea that i could get a cam near the system to make any pics is crazy, yet ss...
4. opposing to JF, i heard that bd samples are not like yetis these days. but hes right that everything bd is 2011 for amd
(well, mc was not q1 2010 too so i dont know if they are ahead of schedule or not)

and from now on i wont comment on this again cause i feel a certain string around my neck, dresdenboy just told me to stop doing it too and i always value his comments. so blame him if u want too ;-)