[Raqia]

AMD has survived the past decade by nimbly (or desperately) steering itself (and sometimes the industry) away from being trampled by Intel's in trying to occupy its space directly (see AMD64, Fusion). It announced today that it would be implementing a 64 bit ARM core:

http://www.amd.com/us/aboutamd/newsr...2012Oct29.aspx

ARM instructions probably mean that the decoding unit slims down, and for once, the execution units will actually be doing something more or less one to one to the instructions they fetch from memory; also this is probably the real reason they hired Jim Keller back, fresh from A6.

It's a server part, so it'll probably have something like ~16 cores per die w/ a much faster memory controller than most ARM parts on board. They could leverage this design for mobile space by cutting it down to 2 to 4 cores and adding a lightweight GCN core to it. I'll be excited to hear details of this implementation when Analyst's day comes.

[rpg.314]

They are using a stock armv8 core. They don't have an architecture license yet. At least not publicly.

[Pressure]

Hard to be anything else than next generation ARM architecture as armv7 is only 32-bit.

[3dilettante]

Originally Posted by Raqia

It's a server part, so it'll probably have something like ~16 cores per die w/ a much faster memory controller than most ARM parts on board.

That's more cores than AMD has ever been able to connect on x86, back when they had money.

The question now is whether AMD paid the cash for a soft macro it can lay down somewhat more freely, or a hard macro that even less engineering cash would go into.

They could leverage this design for mobile space by cutting it down to 2 to 4 cores and adding a lightweight GCN core to it. I'll be excited to hear details of this implementation when Analyst's day comes.

AMD's slides indicate a clear dilineation between the shared-nothing density server market this ARM chip is going into and anything media-related. That has a GPU and x86 only.
It doesn't mean it can't be done, but AMD could barely handle the workload of handling the software stack it had--again, back when it had money.

I'm more interested in seeing if they mention to the analysts where they're getting money to last until 2014. The layoffs are cutting into necessary functions AMD simply can't afford.

[Blazkowicz]

AMD is boasting about interconnexions with the "Freedom fabric" (which funnily is not free as it won't be licensed to others, or at a whim like Intel's QPI)

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...to-cpu-vendors

16 core looks probable, and dual socket motherboards and systems I'd say. AMD probably intends you to pile up 1Us of this thing, if you stack ten dual socket units in a cabinet along with other stuff (a SAN bay, a switch, a PC server) that would be 320 cores here.

[Blazkowicz]

Originally Posted by 3dilettante

AMD's slides indicate a clear dilineation between the shared-nothing density server market this ARM chip is going into and anything media-related. That has a GPU and x86 only.
It doesn't mean it can't be done, but AMD could barely handle the workload of handling the software stack it had--again, back when it had money.

Yes, AMD will sell you an underclocked 2 core Jaguar if you need something low power, else a desktop Bulldozer version n APU or an Opteron APU.
The ARM Opteron is for web servers and generic VMs, where an Opteron APU has a perfectly useless GPU (which could be used to beam remote, 3D accelerated and/or GPGPU accelerated applications to users)

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

AMD is boasting about interconnexions with the "Freedom fabric" (which funnily is not free as it won't be licensed to others, or at a whim like Intel's QPI)

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...to-cpu-vendors

16 core looks probable, and dual socket motherboards and systems I'd say. AMD probably intends you to pile up 1Us of this thing, if you stack ten dual socket units in a cabinet along with other stuff (a SAN bay, a switch, a PC server) that would be 320 cores here.

They won't go into a traditional rack server but rather they will go onto those SeaMicro PCI-E cards with storage and ethernet virtualized.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3768/s...-consumption/2

AMD's slides indicate a clear dilineation between the shared-nothing density server market this ARM chip is going into and anything media-related. That has a GPU and x86 only.
It doesn't mean it can't be done, but AMD could barely handle the workload of handling the software stack it had--again, back when it had money.

I'm more interested in seeing if they mention to the analysts where they're getting money to last until 2014. The layoffs are cutting into necessary functions AMD simply can't afford.

With the exception of the final payment for the GF 28nm thing (which should be offset with an long-term investment coming in) AMD doesn't have any Notes due unto 2015 so AMD should be on fairly firm ground until then.

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

With the exception of the final payment for the GF 28nm thing (which should be offset with an long-term investment coming in) AMD doesn't have any Notes due unto 2015 so AMD should be on fairly firm ground until then.

What are you referring to?

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by Alexko

What are you referring to?

It's just corporate bonds that AMD owns that are due in 2013. It's about $140 million.

[Blazkowicz]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

They won't go into a traditional rack server but rather they will go onto those SeaMicro PCI-E cards with storage and ethernet virtualized.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3768/s...-consumption/2

Alright, thus it makes little sense to speak of multi-socket systems, instead you have mulitple independant systems accessing a common bus.

There still ought to be a self-contained 1U system for low end, we can't all buy expensive blade-like things.

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

It's just corporate bonds that AMD owns that are due in 2013. It's about $140 million.

OK, thanks.