AMD Beats Own Revenue Forecast Despite of 32nm Chip Shortages

Despite of the fact that Globalfoundries could not ship enough new-generation microprocessors made using 32nm SOI process technology to Advanced Micro Devices, the latter managed to beat its own revenue forecasts. Thanks to high demand towards its multi-core server chips based on Bulldozer micro-architecture and the popularity of Fusion A-series accelerated processing units (APUs), the company even posted $97 million income.

AMD said late on Thursday that revenue for the third quarter of 2011 was $1.69 billion, net income was $97 million (or $0.13 per share) and operating income of $138 million. $1.69 billion is higher than AMD anticipated in its mid-quarter update (up to $1.66 billion), but is still lower than the company predicted originally ($1.749 billion and upwards). AMD's gross margin was 45%, lower than the company forecasted due to lower-than-expected amount of new chips in the product mix.

Revenue in the third quarter of 2011 was adversely impacted by 32nm yield, ramp and manufacturing issues experienced by one of our foundry partners, that limited supply of Fusion "Llano" A-series APUs. Additionally, 45nm supply was less than expected due to complexities related to the use of common tools across both technology nodes, AMD said.

“Strong adoption of AMD APUs drove a 35% sequential revenue increase in our mobile business. Despite supply constraints, we saw double digit revenue and unit shipment growth in emerging markets like China and India as well as overall notebook share gains in retail at mainstream price points. Through disciplined execution and continued innovation we will look to accelerate our growth and refine our focus on lower power, emerging markets, and the cloud,” said Rory Read, the president and chief exec of AMD.

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Intel's Silvermont: A New Atom Architecture

Brooke Crothers broke a very important story today - he published the name Silvermont. Atom's first incarnation came to us in 2008 as a Pentium-like dual-issue in-order microprocessor. The CPU core was named Bonnell, after the tallest point in Austin at around 750 feet. Small mountain, small core. Get it?
Bonnell and the original Atom were developed on a 5-year cadence, similar to how Intel ran things prior to the Core 2 revolution (the P6 to Netburst/Pentium 4 move took 5 years). With the original chip out in 2008, five more years would put the next major architecture shift at 2013, which happens to be exactly when the Cnet report mentions Silvermont will be introduced.

When I first met with the Atom design team they mentioned that given the power budget and manufacturing process, the Bonnell design would be in-order. You get a huge performance boost from going to an out-of-order architecture, but with it comes a pretty significant die area and power penalty. I argued that eventually Intel would have to consider taking Atom out of order, but the architects responded that Atom was married to its in-order design for 5 years.

Intel's Moorestown - same Atom core, just more integrated

Since 2008, Atom hasn't had any core architecture changes. Sure Intel integrated the GPU and memory controller, however the CPU still communicates with both of them over an aging FSB. The CPU itself remains mostly unchanged from what we first saw in 2008. Even Intel's 32nm Atom due out by the end of this year doesn't change its architecture, this is the same dual-issue in-order core that we've been covering since day 1. The 32nm version just runs a bit quicker and is paired with a beefier GPU.
Silvermont however changes everything. It is the first new redesign of the Atom architecture and it marks the beginning of Atom being on a tick-tock cadence. Say goodbye to 5 year updates, say hello to a new architecture every 2 years.

Read More - http://www.anandtech.com/show/4333/intels-silvermont-a-new-atom-architecture

AMD Plans Extremely Rapid Transition to New Micro-Architectures, Process Technology.

Advanced Micro Devices seems to be planning extremely rapid transition of its desktop microprocessors to 32nm silicon-on-insulator fabrication process, a person with knowledge of the matter said. By the second quarter of 2012 virtually all AMD processors will be made using 32nm SOI technology and be based on new designs.

At present the absolute majority of desktop microprocessors shipped by Advanced Micro Devices are AMD Athlon II and AMD Phenom II chips in AM3 form-factor. But already in a little bit more than a year from now all the desktop chips that AMD will sell will be made using 32nm SOI process technology and will rely on code-named Bulldozer, Brazos and Llano designs, the source indicated.

Approximately 20% of AMD's desktop microprocessors in Q2 2012 will be in AM3+ form-factor and will belong to the FX family of chips, which is based on Bulldozer micro-architecture. About 10% of desktop chips will come in FT1 ball-grid-array form-factor and will therefore be based on Brazos design. The remaining 70% will be Llano accelerated processing units with two or four x86 cores as well as a Radeon HD 6000-class graphics engine in  FM1 form-factor.

It is remarkable that after a number of delays AMD seems to have rather ambitious plans for the 32nm ramp. By contrast, it usually takes years for Intel Corp., the much larger rival of AMD, to transit to one micro-architecture to another or from one technology process for another.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

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