Re:Could you summerize it? No. But I would be glad to cut & paste it.ajb
1.As an AMD TMF Board member I would like to know if there are any rumors of Jerry
Sanders reading our posts? Or is Jerry completely unaware of this Board?
ANS: I really don't have an insight into this. My gut feel is that he doesn't do anything
personally to monitor these boards. I'm sure there are AMD people who watch these
things either as part of their job or as a hobby, and report back into AMD anything
problematic. For example, if somebody found a website spouting AMD Confidential
information, they would let the legal dep't know so that they can have it removed. I
personally have never done this, but would if I thought the dissemination of information
was detrimental to AMD.
2.Are Top AMD employees aware of the AMD TMF Board? Do they care about our AMD
gripes?
ANS: Some are. I lead a team, and when there are informative posts, I forward the info
to team members, and to the rest of my dept. For instance, during the Q&A part of a
300+ employee meeting recently, I mentioned how many awards Athlon has gotten while
P4 had gotten 0, something I also discussed on this board.
3.Are there any plans in the future for AMD to introduce RDRAM in Hammer or
Clawhammer?
ANS: I won't/can't answer this specifically. I will say that I am not aware of anything that
AMD is doing in chipsets to support RDRAM with K7. I don't think there is a strong
business case to justify it. As chipsets like Nvidia are coming out with dual DDR, that
should be plenty of performance for the foreseeable future.
4.Are there plans to go beyond the Hammer series? If so what new features will be
included?
ANS: I wouldn't be able to answer if even if I knew the details which I don't. I just hope
they don't change the names, I am particularly fond of K9!
5.Is AMD thinking about introducing a CPU in the future with pure SI-28?
ANS: I'm not involved in the technology process, and again wouldn't answer it if I could.
However, all the rumors are supporting this. How widespread this process would be, I
couldn't say either.
6.Jerry Sanders has been very optimistic about IBM's SOI technology. Is this because
AMD has found a way to increase CPU yields as well as provide a marginal increase in
CPU speed?
ANS: You ask too many confidential questions! I believe Eachus has answered this
question from the technical perspective. You can tweak any process to yield higher or
lower speed parts, unfortunately as you increase speeds you decrease yields. SOI is a step
in the right direction, and it can be tweaked to improve either. The market demands in
that timeframe will be the motivating force as to which one is more important.
7.Will AMD improve their 3Dnow technology? or will it be over shadowed by Intel's SSE?
ANS: This is really a marketing-driven question. Given that Palomino supports SSE, that
is a sign to me that AMD will adopt Intel's method. It isn't a question of which is better,
but rather is a question of how many & how fast can we get SW companies to make a
3D-Now specific product or revision. With Hammer coming, my opinion is that it would
be a better use of our resources to get x86-64 in their minds rather than splitting
attention with 3D-Now as well.
8.Can you tell us something about Hector Ruiz? There has been some negative posts
about him on this board.
Yes, he's short. I sat 5' from him at the Inventor's Luncheon this year. Joking aside, I've
heard him speak a few times as well. He is very intelligent, and thinks carefully about
what he says before opening his mouth. As anyone who knows of Jerry, they are night &
day. As an employee, I will be very watchful of anything he does to change the work
environment. So far, everything I've heard inside AMD has been very positive. He's
willing to take risks, but he needs to understand clearly the justification behind them.
There are also rumors that HQ will move to Austin in a few years as well, of course the
biggest delay there will be building the new office space to support him & his staff. I
think that would be a good move for AMD overall. I am also hopeful of continued
success with Hector at the helm.
9.What is your favorite Intel Processor and why?
I never thought of this before. It would have to be the original 5v Pentium chip. I
remember working with the guys designing the first IBM PS/2s that supported them, the
signal quality effort was incredible. I have a philosophy, if brute force doesn't work, you
didn't use enough. That was the Pentium: huge power consumption, ultra fast 50-60 MHz
bus (for its time), mongo die size, it had them all in brute force and then some. Also, until
recently I still had a number of the original engineering samples of them that I hung as
decorations on our Christmas tree (yes, the poor long-suffering one said either they or I
leave!).
10.Will Tualatin bring back some Intel mindshares? How will Athlon4 compare with
Tualatin in the future?
** note: I wrote this answer well over a month ago when you first sent them to me.
Funny how Jerry basically made some of the same claims at the CC! Here it is: That
really is a function of what speeds Intel will support. There have been countless threads
about Tualatin and how it could steal P4 sales, so I won't go there for now. I don't think
Intel will make enough soon enough to do more than dent the mobile/server market.
There is no question that they can help their ASPs, but I think it's a short-term bandage
not a longer-term solution. For comparison to A4, I think its only benefit will be lower
power consumption. I think it will never exceed A4's performance, but be on par at best. I
think AMD's first .13 micron parts should be mobile/server A4's which will put Tualatin in
2nd place for good (this is an outsider's business statement, not an internal AMD one).
From 10,000 feet, I think Tualatin will simply delay the inevitable 30-50% marketshare
that AMD is going to have in mobile space within 18 months.
Yes, I know this is a bold statement, but it is my opinion. Mobile computers have
historically been very very expensive, and their CPU's have been a big part of that. A 1g
A4 is basically the same as a 1.2 or 1.3g desktop part, but with a lower voltage to drop
the total power consumption. Hence, I as a consumer don't understand why it would be
really any more expensive. A4 is our newest product, so we charge a premium for it.
However, over the next few years I think we'll see a drop in prices of mobile parts to
make them more competitive with desktops. I think AMD is smart enough to lead the
way.
11.Is AMD thinking about competing with Intel in the ultra-dense server category?
Thinking about? I'm not sure how you would define 'ultra-dense server'. However, I think
we either are already there, or we've already announced those plans. You can buy today a
Tyan 2P board with everything but the kitchen sink on it that plugs into a 1U rack-mount
unit. At 1.75” high, you can put 30+/- of these in a single rack, giving you 60x 1.2g
Athlon MP's in one rack. Also, it is public knowledge that SledgeHammer will support at
least 4+ way configurations. If I'm unclear about the definition of 'ultra-dense', let me
know.
12.Any rumors on HyperTransport contracts or deals? Is HT gaining support rapidly?
HT seems to be the favorite game in town right now. In reality, there just isn't anything
close to it that performs well & is stable/reliable. I'll start a rumor, Intel isn't going to be
backing HT any time soon!
13.What do you think about nForce from Nvidia? I am actually surprised that I haven't
gotten one in my hands yet. From the people I've talked to, it sounds like a real nice
change in relation to chipset performance. Over time, I wouldn't be surprised if AMD &
Nvidia became real good partners, similar to how FASL is today.
14.Any rumors about AMD buying Compaq's Alpha microprocessor division? ** again,
another month+ old answer: No, I don't have any info into that. However, I'm happy
enough letting Intel buy them. AMD has already gotten a good number of CPU designers
from DEC over the past few years. We've got what we want. Let intel spend more big $
on a shell of a company to only see any remaining talent quit within the next year.
15.How do you feel about Dell's products and their anti-AMD stand?
I live in a glass house, my negative opinions of working with Dell are no secret. I think
AMD can't lose no matter what happens. If Dell remains Intel-only, then Dell will
continue to pressure Intel for better deals which will drive the rest of the industry to
AMD's front door even quicker. If Dell picks up AMD, then that may be a door for AMD
to get into the commercial market. The only bad thing that could happen is if AMD
cracks & gives Dell a super deal for only non-commercial systems, which will only tick
off CPQ & GTW. I cannot see AMD doing that one at all. In regards to Dell's products, I
don't see them any different than any other PC maker. They have good & bad. I will give
them credit for their mfg model as being cost-effective, but on the other hand for the
same reasons I wouldn't make a deal with them if I ran the part mfg shops. When you
make nothing on each unit & sell 10 mil of them, your total profits are still nothing.
I had started to create new questions to answer, and honestly haven't looked at them for
3 weeks. My Transmeta reference was referring to June 20 when they slashed revenue
expectations. I will only include the first one, and I wish I had taken my own advice (I
wrote this back in June)...
16.What do I think of the overall market?
Plain & simple: Bad & Worse. Just look at Transmeta's announcment last week to get an
idea of how things are. Getting projects funded at OEMs is taking an Act of God, nobody
wants to spend a dime on anything.
Black MagicGuy |
