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AMD's candid Mario Rivas discusses AMD's next-generation processors, and some of the problems with its old ones

AMD has had more than its share of problems over 2007 with possibly the worst issue being with its new Phenom and Opteron processors.  With the current problems with AMD's K10 processors, now the question becomes, "Will AMD make its deadline for the next processor?"

ChannelWeb Network sat down for a phone interview with AMD Executive Vice President of the Computing Products Group Mario Rivas for some more information on the bug and how AMD plans to recover from the torrent of bad press that has resulted.

Rivas says that the bug started as an observation and it wasn’t until mid-November that it actually turned into a more serious bug. Rivas also said that the company tried to do BIOS workarounds and patches with a 90% success rate.

In a closing comment, Rivas details some heavy information about the company's next-process chips. "We have 45nm on the way. We will have initial samples also in January. I'm fairly confident that those puppies are going to boot, and then we can have a follow-up conference call and I'll tell you, 'The sucker is booting.'"

Typically, when a processor is first taped-out, a operating system boot is one of the markers of a successful design.  Intel's 45nm Penryn, for example, loaded the Windows XP operating system on the first spin.  11 months later, the processor began shipping for volume.

According to AMD’s John Pellerin, director of logic technology and development, AMD plans to ramp production of 45nm  chips in the first half of 2008. Pellerin says that AMD is more concerned with finding customer applications for its processors rather that a process race with rival chip makers. 

Pellerin said in an interview during the International Electron Device Meeting that AMD’s 32nm high-k parts were in the development phase showing that AMD is already looking down the road. The company hopes to learn from the problems encountered with its early 45nm process.

AMD public relations claims the company has not announced plans for high-k metal gate on its 45nm node.  The company's roadmap plans to debut high-k metal gate in 2010 with 32nm, with the option of introducing it on the 45nm node at that time.

Rivas closes, "We also have 32nm advance work in SRAMs, which as you know is the initial step. So we will be a fast follower again, and as long as we have architectural advantage, our 45nm will be as good as the other guy's 32nm."

Intel announced its 32nm test shuttle just three months ago in September 2007. If AMD does have a 32nm test shuttle already, the year differential for 45nm may shrink considerably with AMD's 2010 architecture launches.


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blind devotion
By Andypro on 12/14/2007 2:11:37 PM , Rating: 4
Rivas closes, "We also have 32nm advance work in SRAMs, which as you know is the initial step. So we will be a fast follower again, and as long as we have architectural advantage , our 45nm will be as good as the other guy's 32nm."

Guess what? You don't.




RE: blind devotion
By retrospooty on 12/14/2007 2:26:16 PM , Rating: 2
Either he is living in the past (Athon 64 over P4) or has intimate knowlegde of the future. Likely its the past ;)


RE: blind devotion
By erikejw on 12/14/2007 7:46:43 PM , Rating: 5
Currently Intel is smoking AMD in every possible way.
Their Core2 architecture is great.

However I don't think AMDs Phenom is that bad as everyone else
says(I would never buy one since Intel is better however).

Penryn is just so much better than K8 but K10 is big step towards being competitive again. K10 is about 10% slower clock for clock. The large problem is the speed of the ship, 2.3 GHz doesn't cut it.

AMD has always been slower when they ramped new architecture s due to their less resources. They got the K8 dual to work at 3.2 GHz at 90nm. Now they have 2.3 GHz at 65nm which is abysmal at the time. I expect them to ramp up the speed quite quickly during 2008 since the architecture itself is designed to reach higher MHz than K8. Will it be enough?
Intel can release faster CPUs whenever they want, they have headroom.

I don't expect them to overtake Intel in any way but I expect them to get much closer. If they get like 2 speed grades below Intel they should be able to charge quite good for their chips and actually make some money and hopefully get in the black this year or at least the 2008H2.


RE: blind devotion
By retrospooty on 12/15/2007 9:30:30 AM , Rating: 2
I agree with you there. If AMD can get the cache bug fixed and speeds up Phenom can be awesome (well, its awesome now, its just that Core2 is more so).

The big obstacle coming now is Nehalem. Its due in late 08 and moves to internal memory like AMD chips (which is AMD's one big advantage).


RE: blind devotion
By Zurtex on 12/14/2007 2:27:26 PM , Rating: 3
AMD's current 65nm parts almost run clock for clock with Intel's current 45nm parts. But that's not the point, he's talking then not now, which is as you can imagine what AMD need to be doing.

Really do hope AMD learn from their mistakes and pick themselves off the ground and make another good run at Intel.


RE: blind devotion
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 12/14/2007 2:30:18 PM , Rating: 2
Clock for Clock AMD does not run "almost" with Intel's 45nm line. They don't even run "Clock for Clock" parity with Intel's 65nm line, what makes you think they can compete with Nehalem on 45nm? Wishful thinking on your part indeed.


RE: blind devotion
By Zurtex on 12/14/2007 2:41:13 PM , Rating: 2
I'm sorry, but did I miss something?

Phenom generally performs about 6-8% worse than Conroe with the odd benchmark than an equivalently clocked Core2Quad, with the exception of a few benchmarks where it performs a little better. Right? Penryn doesn't really add major performance and I could be wrong but it looks to me that it adds stunning extra performance of 9% or so mainly in areas where Phenom used to look a little competetive.

If not Anandtech needs to revise its benchmarking articles. That kind of difference is only made a big deal about when it's 2 different companies, if it's the same company releasing news products with that difference everyone laughs.


RE: blind devotion
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 12/14/2007 2:57:34 PM , Rating: 5
So let me sum up in your own words.

6-8% Slower than Intel's 65nm year old chips. (Conroe)

9-15% Slower than Intel's 45nm month old chips. (Penryn)
(This is subjective since to fix errata, AMD had to dump 10-20% performance to make them not lock up)

New Phenom and Barcelona processors won't be out until March (According to AMD) and all existing ones were yanked from shelves due to this error.

July timeframe Intel will be launching Nehalem and the new QuickPath platform.....

Call me skeptical, but where in here does AMD look like it's making progress? It's about to be a process node AND an architecture behind just like it was 2 months ago. AMD won't be rolling out 45nm until mid 2009 (or late 2009 given their track record) when Intel will be launching a 32nm shrink on the Nehalem platform. AMD seems to be hedging its bets on Fusion at this point to turn them around.


RE: blind devotion
By grenableu on 12/14/2007 3:01:54 PM , Rating: 2
AMD obviously has to put a positive spin in things, but you really need to have your head in the sand to not see how grim things are starting to look for them.


RE: blind devotion
By Andypro on 12/14/2007 3:04:18 PM , Rating: 3
I agree with everything you said sans the Nehalem launch. No way Nehalem is ready for launch by July. I have speculation from an Intel insider that it simply won't be ready for a full launch until Q4.

Despite that "hiccup," nothing AMD is doing leads me to believe they'll have anything close to competition in 08 or 09. They're re-rolling out K8 ffs.


RE: blind devotion
By rninneman on 12/14/2007 3:37:34 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
No way Nehalem is ready for launch by July. I have speculation from an Intel insider that it simply won't be ready for a full launch until Q4.


The operative term there is speculation. Based on Intel showing a functioning Nehalem system at the fall IDF and their recent track record, let's just say I would not be betting against them launching when Intel says it will.


RE: blind devotion
By Targon on 12/14/2007 5:47:20 PM , Rating: 3
At this point, we don't know how much of the performance of Phenom has been lost due to the cache issues. It may be that AMD isn't just losing the 10 percent or so caused by the BIOS workaround for the bugs, but is also losing another 10 to 20 percent in addition to that.

At this point, it is too early to be sure just how far behind AMD is due to the bugs in the K10 launch processors. This isn't being blinded by "fanboiism", it is more about not knowing enough about what is broken in the current K10 processors to know what their true potential is.


RE: blind devotion
By vortex222 on 12/16/2007 10:02:42 PM , Rating: 2
I AM an AMD fanboy. Have been for a long time, and I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt whenever i can. I still run my socket 939 X2 4600 and looking to upgrade my video to an ATI 38xx video card. I think its great value for what i get.

But at this point if i were looking to buy a higher end platform I would be a total lunatic to go with an AMD quad core. C2Q has advantage in performance, thermals, and especially overclocking (thats not that big of concern for me however). I cant even justify Phenom on cost-per-performance.

If the Phenom was more competitive in price, and more comparable in performance I would most definatly go for it because its AMD.

Coming from an AMD Fanboy who always hopes they will put out the best product they can, The only thing i don't like about the Core2 is the fact its made by Intel.


RE: blind devotion
By theapparition on 12/17/2007 12:41:15 PM , Rating: 2
Clock for clock, Phenom was 5-15% slower than Penryn before Phenom BIOS updates. After the BIOS bug-fix update, it gets worse at 15-25% slower.


RE: blind devotion
By Zurtex on 12/14/2007 3:10:09 PM , Rating: 5
I'm not a raving fanboy I said:

"Really do hope AMD learn from their mistakes and pick themselves off the ground and make another good run at Intel."

I don't see why you need to pick a fight, 6 - 8%, 9-15%, these under benchmarks where Intel does better (yes if you read the benchmarks there are a couple of things the AMD chips did faster) I mean give me a break. Those kind of figures don't move mountains, it's in Intel's process that it holds massive advantage not their architecture (certainly when we're talking about clock for clock, or performance per watt or heat dissipation)

I'm not saying Intel don't have a huge advantage, but let's call a spade a spade and not mix things up.

Nehalem will launch, it's an exciting change for Intel, but we'll see benchmarks when we see benchmarks. I think if anything looking at the history of Intel vs. AMD it's never best to count the chicks.


RE: blind devotion
By 16nm on 12/14/2007 7:56:21 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
it's in Intel's process that it holds massive advantage not their architecture (certainly when we're talking about clock for clock, or performance per watt or heat dissipation)


I think this is a fair statement. K10 and Conroe are pretty similar and they are more or less the same clock-for-clock. It's Intel's superior processes that gives them the greater efficiency, performance per watt and cooler operation. Plus, it doesn't hurt the great overclocking abilities of Intel chips. AMD have a good 90nm process, but they really need to keep working on 65nm, IMO.


RE: blind devotion
By JumpingJack on 12/14/2007 8:49:46 PM , Rating: 2
10% difference clock for clock, that is not pretty similar:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/19/the_spider_... (compare 2.4 Ghz to 2.4 Ghz)...

It get's worst... even the 2.6 Ghz part does not achieve parity with the q6600: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/12/13/amd_ph...


RE: blind devotion
By xti on 12/15/2007 2:31:30 AM , Rating: 2
10% isnt going to matter to any of the major customers they have. Even server customers dont care about speed, they rather take lower and stable. thats why the barcelona flop is something that matters, and the 10% isnt going to bother anyone other than geeks.

now...are they making money off these 10% slower-chips?