AMD seeks growth in diversity

Article By : AMD

The company is ramping up new products across a diverse set of markets, delivering high-performance processors that meet customer demands.

At its Financial Analyst Day, AMD presented their long-term growth strategy, focusing on delivering products and technologies for the PC, immersive device, and datacentre markets. These markets are estimated to be worth ₹3.88 lakh crore ($60 billion) combined.

"Our long-term technology roadmaps position AMD to take advantage of the major shifts in the technology industry and deliver significant financial returns," said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su, in a press release. "We are entering the next phase of our growth strategy through ramping our phenomenal new products across a diverse set of markets."

Datacentre

AMD has launched the EPYC, ushering in a new era for high-performance server processors and the datacentre. With its high core count, memory bandwidth, and support for high-speed input/output (I/O) channels in a single chip, EPYC aims to revolutionise the dual-socket server market while simultaneously reshaping expectations for single-socket servers. Previously codenamed "Naples", this new family of high-performance processors for cloud-based and traditional on-premise datacentres will deliver the Zen x86 processing engine scaling up to 32 physical cores.

Client compute

AMD noted that its upcoming consumer and commercial Ryzen processors leverage the company's x86 Zen core architecture to deliver more features, increased efficiency and performance.

"Our upcoming AMD Ryzen processor line-up builds on the foundation we have set to drive our further expansion into the high-performance desktop, premium consumer notebook, and commercial markets," said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, AMD Compute and Graphics business group.

Future AMD client compute processors include:
Consumer desktop PC solutions

• Ryzen Threadripper, a Zen-based CPU with up to 16-cores and 32-threads with a new platform with expanded memory and I/O bandwidth, designed for the High-End Desktop (HEDT) market to fulfil the demand for more cores and threads that permeates the extreme desktop market. It is scheduled for summer 2017.
• Ryzen 3 desktop CPUs are scheduled for availability in Q3 2017.
• AMD provided an ecosystem update on its in-market Ryzen desktop processors— Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5—noting that it expects Ryzen-powered Windows-based systems from the top five OEMs to launch in Q2 2017.

Consumer notebook PC solutions

• Ryzen Mobile APUs (codenamed "Raven Ridge") integrate a 4-core, 8-thread Zen-based CPU and high-performance Vega graphics to deliver an expected 50 per cent increase in CPU performance and over 40 per cent better graphics performance, at half the power of its previous generation. Launching in the second half of 2017, Ryzen Mobile APUs are designed for premium 2-in-1s, ultraportables, and gaming form factors.

Commercial PC solutions

• Targeted for commercial, enterprise, and public sector implementation, Ryzen PRO processors are designed to deliver powerful multi-threaded performance for premium business PCs with workstation-class performance, state-of-the-art silicon-level security, and reliable solutions with enterprise-class support and top-to-bottom manageability.
• Ryzen PRO desktop solutions are slated for availability in the second half of 2017.
• Ryzen PRO mobile is planned to be available in the first half of 2018.

Graphics

AMD also announced the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, its first graphics card based on the Radeon Vega architecture and as a solution for both machine learning and visualisation. With 64 compute units (4096 stream processors), Radeon Vega Frontier Edition delivers an estimated 25 TFLOPS of FP16 and an estimated 13 TFLOPS of FP32 peak performance. Radeon Vega Frontier Edition will be available for purchase in Q2 2017.

Technology

AMD detailed its next-generation processor, graphics, and platform technologies for server, client, graphics and semi-custom products. Its roadmap implements technologies that the company claims can deliver substantial performance and energy efficiency gains, accelerate the adoption of AMD technologies and expand the computing capabilities of a wide-range of systems.

"Our engineering focus remains on delivering a steady drumbeat of new high-performance CPU and GPU architectures that build on the strong foundations we have set with Zen and Polaris to drive broader adoption of our products," said Mark Papermaster, senior vice president and chief technology officer, AMD. "Infinity Fabric is the secret sauce within each of our products that allows us to bring together our leadership x86 CPUs and graphics in an efficient way…," he continued in a press release.

AMD's roadmap includes:

• AMD will introduce 7nm Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPU architectures that focus on significant performance-per-watt gains.
• AMD plans to follow its Vega architecture with the introduction of Navi and its subsequent next-gen architecture, both of which are planned to be built using the 7nm process.
• The company will adopt advanced transistor nodes plans using a combination of on-chip integration, software and system design engineering innovations for more efficient architecture designs.
• Starting with 2017 product introductions, AMD plans products to leverage its Infinity Fabric technology for highly scalable SoCs and platforms.