Andre Agassi

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), is a manufacturer of Semi-conducteur S based with Sunnyvale in California. The company was founded in 1969 by a group of engineers and leaders of Fairschild Semiconductor. The cofounders of AMD are Jerry Sanders, ED Turney, John Carey, Sven Simonsen, Jack Gifford, Frank Botte, Jim Gilles and Larry Stenger. The arrow of the Logo of the company directed towards the line symbolizes its growth in the " right chemin" (the right way).

In 2006, AMD point in the 8th place of the 20 larger manufacturers of semiconductors, behind Intel, Samsung Electronics, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics, Renesas and Hynix. In the first quarter 2007, the fall of AMD in this classification is vertiginous since the company points now in the 18th place. He is on the other hand the second supplier of Microprocesseur S for computer PC (architecture X86) after Intel.

AMD also occupies the second place on the market of the chart-graphs behind Nvidia and the third place on the market of GPUs behind Intel and Nvidia since the acquisition of ATI.

History

AMD is created in 1969 with a capital of $100 000 at one of the cofounders: Jerry Sanders. He will say to the beginnings of the company: Initially the people, the products and the profits will follow. During the same year, it will settle in Sunnyvale in California. The first die is produced the same year: Am9300, a shift register MSI of 4 bits. The year according to in 1972 , the first product created by the company is born: it is about Am2501. It is in 1973 that the first production unit out of the east United States started at Penang in Malaysia.

In 2003, AMD and Fujitsu created the common company Spansion, which gathers their activities of Mémoire flash. AMD remained the majority shareholder with a participation of 60%. During 2005, AMD and Fujitsu sold their participation in Spansion. The latter thus operates now like an independent company.

July 25th, 2006, AMD repurchases ATI for 5,4 billion dollars.

Production capacity

The principal factories of production of processors AMD are located at Dresden in Germany. New factories are in construction in Dresden and towards New York and of the partnerships with Chartered Semiconductors were signed.

Processors x86

Old

8086,80286,80386, Am486

K5

K6 and K6-x series

AMD created the microprocessors K5, K6, K6-2 and K6-III, which was regarded as clones of their equivalent at Intel, but sold less expensive (less powerful at equal frequency for all floating-point calculations, but a little more in whole calculation).

K7

AMD launched on the market the Athlon and the Duron, of the compatible processors X86, in 1999. It is thanks to these processors that AMD increased its notoriety on the market and could reconsider the front of the scene (after Cyrix had given up at the beginning of 1999). The Athlon was indeed relatively more powerful than all its competitors and sold at a particularly competitive price. Contrary to K6, floating-point calculations were very powerful, which made it possible to make of it a processor of choice for the video games and the use of intensive applications multi-media. In May 2002, AMD announces that it gives up the manufacture of the Duron processors, to concentrate on Athlon and the Processeurs 64 bits.

Current

K8

The series 64 bits of AMD , baptized AMD64, begins its career at the beginning of 2003 with the Opteron, intended for the waiters and the work stations. It is necessary to await the autumn 2003 to have a version of office, named Athlon 64 and Athlon FX (makes Opteron famous single processor of it). Compared to the Itanium of Intel, the characteristic of the AMD64 was to remain completely compatible with architecture former to 32 bits, and thus to support all the existing applications. Intel recognized the interest of this approach by adopting the extensions of AMD64 for its new processors.

For its part, Intel launches in 2005 the series of intructions Intel 64 or EM64T in particular in Pentium 4 6xx. To activate the mode with 64 bits, one needs an operating system adapted. Linux and some others Unix was the first, joined by Windows XP Professionnel Edition x64.

An important characteristic of the AMD64 is the integration of the controller report in the central processing unit, whereas this function was traditionally reserved for the Chipset. All these elements allow a significant profit of performances, even in mode with 32 bits. The AMD64 is an architecture of choice for the players, more powerful in general than a Pentium 4 of the same range. The strategy of AMD to compete with its adversary, to which the benefit alone are enough to exceed its incomes, consists in dominating the market of the retail sale. Intel neglecting relatively this market, AMD exerts quasi a monopoly on this sector, offering the best prices whatever the range requested. Their processors follow this strategy, considering that the majority of their purchasers, knowing the market of data processing well, use only one application at the same time (ex: play, calculation) asking “rough” power enormously, field where the AMD excel. On the other hand, thanks to the Hyper-Threading, the Intel processors have the advantage in the multi-media one, where knowledge in data processing of the users is weaker, and who ask especially for a great visibility of the manufacturer.

The March 30th 2006, AMD announces the recruiting of Samuel Naffziger and eight other developer-keys which worked at its Intel competitor with the development of the Processeur 64 bit S Itanium - a chip high efficiency for the waiters - which encounters difficulties since its launching in 2001. This defection does not help Intel to start again Itanium, whose chaotic history caused a certain embarrassment in its originators (IBM, Bull, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems), while AMD should benefit from the experience gained by the defectors to pack his offer 64-bit (Opteron, in particular).

2006:

AMD takes a step symbolic system, because these future processor 64 bits Quadri-hearts will be installed in the waiters Dell, firm known to support Intel. The rumors go already good progress as for the installation of chips AMD in the computers Dell. That tends to prove that the power of CPU of AMD is recognized, whereas Intel launches its architectures Conroe (for desktop PC), Merom (for portable) and Woodcrest (for waiters), architectures which mark a turning in the policy of Intel which almost made only increase the frequency of its processors during all the period of the Pentium 4, without much improvement of performances. Since the end of 2006, the Dell computers propose processors AMD.

In August 2006, AMD buys the map production graphs ATI for 5,4 billion USD. The alliance of these two major actors of industry will make it possible to propose to the consumers solutions of integral computers processor, chipset and graphics chip, i.e. complete and very compact computers being able to be useful in the mobile phones or the vehicles.

AMD is devoted to a truth face to face with Intel. The exit at the end of November 2006, for Intel Core 2 Quad from Intel, is a disadvantage for AMD, which will market its quad-core only in 2007. While waiting, to have an offer with its catalog, AMD the platform 4x4 left. It made up of 2 dual-core Athlon, is assembled on a mother chart bi-processor.

K10

Processor Quad Core native known under the name of Phenom X4. Left on November 19th, 2007, Phenom represents the new generation of processor AMD. For the moment, Phenom 9500 (2.2GHz) and 9600 (2.3GHz) represent the entirety of quad-core the native offer of AMD. The Dual-core derivative of K10 (Rana) is not awaited before 2008. But it is known right now that they will be deprived of L3 mask but will support the Hypertransport 3.0.

Fusion

It is about a project initiated following the repurchase of ATI. The goal would be to amalgamate the graphics processor in the main frame to decrease once again moreover the costs and consumption in energy. It may be also that it is about a project aiming at creating GPU on socket that one would connect on a mother chart with two sockets: on one CPU, the other the GPU and the main memory would be divided between the two.

Sockets AMD

Sockets AMD by chronological order:

Other technologies and platforms

Alchemy processors

AMD Live!

AMD Live! is the response of AMD to Intel and its Viiv: this label defines the standard of the PC of living room integrating a processor AMD and the peripherals graphic and of communication allowing the support of all the functions multi-media of the living room.

Description of certification

Processor: Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64 FX-60 or Opteron
Socket: Graphic AM2
: Double GPU of the type SLI or Crossfire
Hard drive SATA
Engraver dvd multiformat
Keyboard without wire
Remote control

The terminal DDREAM is the first " set-up Box" , certified AMD Live!

Platform AMD Quad FX

It is about an proposed offer by AMD to counter the offer of Intel. It was composed of two processor FX for example of the FX-62 to combine configuration including 4 cores.

More effective than the quad-core of Intel, they were not the success hoped for leading cause of its excessively high price. The basic configurations could reach 1500$ U.S. without counting the memory, disc-hard the etc…

Platform AMD Quad FX was on the other hand regarded as the ultimate configuration and could be coupled to a platform QUAD-SLI made up of two Nvidia graphics cards 7950 GX2

Geode processors

Processors very low consumption of AMD. Actually, it is about true System one has Chip gathering about all the awaited functionalities of a computer in only one chip consuming very little energy.

Pacifica/AMD-V

It is about a technology of virtualisation material similar to the Vanderpool of Intel and integrated into the last processors of AMD.

Platform " Better by design" (portable)

Memory flash

Partnerships

See too

List of the processors Athlon XP

External bonds

Official site
New nomenclature AMD (InfoMars.fr)

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