
AMD denies killing off big cores (Kaveri, Steamroller, and Excavator) - reitzensteinm
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/19/amd-kills-off-big-cores-kaveri-steamroller-and-excavator/
======
gb
The article has been amended:

"Updated 11/19/2012@10:15am: AMD contacted us with an official denial of the
story and stated that Kaveri and the big cores are still on track."

~~~
tankbot
Ugh, they should put that at the top of the article. Not that it's a long read
but that comment invalidates the entire thing!

~~~
wmf
The whole point of SemiAccurate is to report "true rumors" before they become
official, so pretty much everything they publish is officially denied. So
either this article is completely wrong or it's right but AMD isn't willing to
admit it yet.

~~~
mtgx
I don't know, but considering the transition would happen within 2 years, I
can see how they wouldn't want people to find out 2 years earlier about it.

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programminggeek
I've been thinking that Win RT and Surface are the real future of Windows -
ARM based, no more backwards compatibility. This pretty much seals it. Apple
and MSFT were already moving to ARM, ChromeOS and Android are obviously
already there. AMD is going there now too. Many/most machines we use in 3-5
years will be ARM powered, not x86 powered.

Intel of course is going to resist ARM and low power computing for one huge
reason - profit. There are only so many machines sold each year and switching
to ARM doesn't sell more processors for Intel. So, switching to lower perf and
lower power processors like Atom means Intel can only sell them for $20-30 vs.
$100-300 for a core i3/5/7. That is why Atom hasn't been pushed by Intel on
mobile, it would destroy their whole business model. You can't drop billions
into manufacturing if you don't have the revenue and profits to fund it.

AMD's future is going to look a lot more like nVidia's current plan than
Intel's.

~~~
reitzensteinm
Even in an all ARM world, Intel would still be very much able to charge
$100-300+ for desktop chips, and $1000+ for server chips.

With their fabs and engineering talent, they'd still be strong leaders in
terms of IPC, core counts, computing density, performance per watt, etc.

The dynamics would be similar to AMD vs Intel today. Charge double for a 50%
lead, 5x as much for a 100% lead, etc. When marginal performance is important,
the premium is gladly paid.

While they'd have countless fabless design companies competing with them for
the low end, few if any companies will be able to compete toe to toe at the
cutting edge. Maybe IBM - who else?

While a shrinking percentage of the market is fitting in that high performance
bucket, I would hazard a guess that the absolute numbers are still going up,
if only because of server chips and gamers. Though I could not find any data
on this and would be happy to be proven wrong.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is an interesting assertion. While it is true that Intel has great
fabrication chops, their biggest competitor in that space, Samsung, makes ARM
chips. There is an outside possibility that AMD gets into the ARM space, gets
some traction and Samsung brings their manufacturing muscle to bear and
captures the 'high' end.

It is interesting to understand the 'Intel monopoly' [1] and how it came to
be. I worked at Intel in the mid-80's and basically IBM 'created' a personal
computer market by bringing their reputation to the market, Microsoft provided
the software, and rigid compatibility was demanded by the market to maximize
software re-use (software and training has always been the biggest 'cost' of
switching instruction set architectures). Early on Intel was cross licensing
that 8086 architecture with partners to get market share against the 68000
architecture but later they clawed back a lot of the licenses.

The requirement that is be 'windows compatible' created a giant moat around
the x86 instruction set architecture. That moat wasn't officially breached
until the early 2000's when AMD announced their Sledgehammer (aka Opeteron)
AMD64 architecture. Here was an architecture that was _not_ Windows compatible
(windows didn't _really_ support 64 bit chips until Windows 7) and yet AMD
managed some big design wins in servers because of Linux and OEMs who could
adapt quickly to the new extensions. Intel finally caved and shipped the AMD
extensions in their own chips, even though they knew it was probably the end
of the Itanium as a viable product.

Now AMD announces an ARM server chip, they have some expectation that it will
gain some market share because they did it with Opteron. They are even calling
it an Opteron perhaps as a nod to that history. They will be able to innovate
in the peripheral chips because all off the 'bets' are off in terms of what
has to be in the 'south bridge'. They can do more creative memory
interconnects because they aren't constrained by folks expecting the Intel
stuff.

And here is the interesting thing, there are easily 10x the ARM licensees than
the x86 licensees. That pretty much guarantees a lot of competition and price
pressure.

The strategic questions are these:

Can AMD establish a 'server' standard? Something like the PC spec but for ARM
chips, a minimum set of things that will always be there and a way to find out
what optional things are there. This enables shipping a generic kernel that
boots on everything and customizes itself to the environment.

Can AMD survive the ingress of a number of other players earlier in the life
cycle rather than later. If they are getting traction expect competitive chips
in 12 months rather than 24 or 36 months.

What is Intel's "Thermonuclear war" strategy and would they be willing to pull
that trigger. Unlike Apple's Android antagonists, AMD is not well positioned
to survive a huge litigation punch.

We'll see of course, the game is afoot as Sherlock Holmes would say. I'm
hopeful that we crack this thing open and start innovating again.

------
mtgx
Normally, this would've been the right strategy - if done 2-3 years ago. But
at that point whoever was running AMD was still being dismissive about ARM and
the mobile market. Now they realized they shouldn't have been, but it may be
too late.

This is why it pays to have a visionary CEO, one that can _feel_ where things
are moving years ahead of the others, instead of a mere "manager". Transitions
to disruptive markets can literally kill your company if you're not doing it
on time. By the time a "pragmatist" manager - one that looks only at _present_
data - realizes what is going on, it's already too late.

Flawless execution for the switch to ARM may not be enough. They may need a
good differentiation strategy, too. If they knew they would do this, it may
have even paid off to be the ones buying the MIPS architecture. The ARM market
is starting to consolidate right now, and I'm not sure there will still be
room for AMD's stock ARM CPU's (and probably stock GPU's too?) by 2014.

~~~
tatsuke95
> _"This is why it pays to have a visionary CEO, one that can feel where
> things are moving years ahead of the others"_

The problem is, you only ever find this out with hindsight.

~~~
Permit
Exactly. The hindsight bias that is present when discussing CEOs, failed
companies, successful companies and business in general is absolutely
stunning.

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api
This is bad. We now have an x86 chip monopoly.

~~~
w1ntermute
And newcomers can't enter the market because they'd need a patent cross-
licensing agreement with Intel, like AMD had. And a newcomer is unlikely to
get such an agreement.

~~~
roc
I'm sure AMD would be more than happy to sell their position to any would-be
competitor, if it's transferable.

I think the bigger problem is just that it's extremely difficult and expensive
to compete with Intel on x86. And all of a sudden the x86 market has taken a
turn toward lower growth and lower margins. So, really, why would anyone
bother when it's cheaper to get into the mobile/low-power ARM race and those
markets have so much more up-side and room to make advancements that aren't
contingent on billion dollar foundry investments?

~~~
wtallis
_"I'm sure AMD would be more than happy to sell their position to any would-be
competitor, if it's transferable."_

It's almost certainly not transferable to the extent allowed by law, given the
trouble Intel caused just over AMD spinning off their fab business.

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DiabloD3
I guess this means the end of x86. Many companies still refuse to buy single
vendor equipment.

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Shorel
Goodbye reasonable priced Intel chips.

Welcome overpriced i9 or whatever will be the next generation.

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robododo
For those not in the know, semiaccurate is not exactly reliable. They post
just about any rumor, and get things wrong as much as right.

Take this with a grain of salt, and file it into the "hrm, this might happen"
category.

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Wohlf
I've always been an AMD fan, but their recent cores have left much to be
desired when compared to Intel. I'll really be looking forward to what they do
with ARM servers.

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Jimbotron
Updated 11/19/2012@10:15am: AMD contacted us with an official denial of the
story and stated that Kaveri and the big cores are still on track.

------
qwerta
Maybe 2600k@5GHz is practical and theoretical limit for silicon based chips.
Scientists were talking about this nearly two decades.

BTW: AMD makes low-end chips, maybe it is more perspective line for future
development (power efficiency). Something like that happened with Pentium4 and
Pentium3 Mobile.

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bryanlarsen
One of the saddest things about this move is that they're moving into a market
currently dominated by a competitor that they directly enabled. One reason
that Qualcomm is doing so well is due to their purchase of the Adreno platform
from AMD in 2008.

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batgaijin
doesn't this guarantee an antitrust suit against intel?

~~~
freehunter
Like ElliotH mentioned, having a monopoly is not illegal. What is illegal is
using your market power to drive out competitors and crush upstarts. If Intel
is guilty of this[1], then they will face anti-trust hearings. If they're not,
having a monopoly on x86 processors will not be enough for them to be
punished.

On this one, it seems to be AMD causing their own downfall by poor management
decisions leading to bad engineering practices. There's a lot of talent over
there that is going to waste.

[1] I believe AMD successfully sued them for this in the past, but that seems
to be over and settled.

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indiecore
_facepalm_

Ugh, should I grab an intel CPU now before the prices get jacked up due to
monopolization?

~~~
qznc
There is still VIA for producing x86 chips.

~~~
aristidb
The segment in which VIA competes seems better served by cheap ARM cores IMHO.

