AMD is quite possibly the world's best desktop
processor design and manufacturer. AMD currently produces two main products, along with a myriad of other smaller devices. AMD?s two biggest products are
flash memory (with
NOR technology) and desktop processors (
Athlon,
Duron), which compete rigorously with many companies including
Intel, its main rival. 33 years old, AMD is not quite the newcomer to the semiconductor arena that people often think it is. AMD now operates world wide with global sales, offices, and plants nearly everywhere, including America, Asia, and Europe.
Company History
Fairchild Semiconductor, for whatever reason, provided many current day semiconductor companies with the brilliant employee's that created their existance. AMD is no different. In 1969
Jerry Sanders left
Fairchild Semiconductors to spearhead the risky new startup, AMD. Jerry found himself the team lead of seven talented employees creating various electronic devices for customers at an improved quality out of an employee's living room. This is a remarkable feat, especially when you consider that many of the original eight in this startup had marketing backgrounds (including Jerry) instead of technical backgrounds.
AMD showed drastic growth initially in a harsh and sometimes overcrowded market. In November of 1969 AMD had its first silicon release of a
4-bit Shift Register yet by May of 1970 AMD still hadn't seen a sale. Despite this initial struggle, by 1974 AMD had an astonishing $26.5 million dollars in sales. Currently lead by
CEO Hector Ruiz, the companies spirit can be represented by the willful and strong character of Mr. Ruiz who used to cross the
Mexican border everyday by foot to go to school.
Processor History
AMD microprocessors support the
x86 ISA that most desktop computers run, including those made by
Intel,
Transmetta, and
Cyrix. AMD has always offered better value processors compared to the market segment leader and targets their product toward performance. Unlike
Intel who has often sacrificed performance for market share or sales, AMD usually caters to high-end
CPU users.
AM386
1991 --
AMD's virgin
CPU. This processor, developed by AMD with help from various acquisitions succeeded in breaking the Intel monopoly despite vigorous lawsuits from Intel.
AM486
1991 --
This processor competed well against the
Intel brand rival (
486), yet AMD was still a newcomer to the market and their corresponding market share was small. Word was out about the soon-to-be-released
Pentium processor and AMD had to keep up.
K5
1993 --
This processor was never viewed well by the public, mainly due to its late release at
100Mhz while the Pentium was at
166Mhz (A huge difference in those days). It was
AMD's first
superscalar chip design and the complexity proved very difficult. The K5 had some heat problems, which it never recovered from. This
CPU was quickly discontinued and AMD focused its efforts on the up and coming
K6 processor.
K6
1997 --
The notable processor of
AMD's history. The K6 put AMD on the map for everyday computer purchases. For the first time ever, AMD briefly held the title of worlds
fastest desktop
CPU. The K6 was built from the
NexGen 686 core through an acquisition and let AMD make huge advances from the K5. This processor even supported
Intel's
MMX extensions, allowing it to run the latest optimized programs.
K6-2
1998 --
The second version of the
K6, the
K6-2 offered the new
3DNow! instruction extensions as well as a new 100Mhz
FSB. This processor was released at higher and higher Mhz, allowing AMD to continue to gain market share on
Intel. This processor was marketed as a
budget or
value processor, offering very competitive performance at much lower prices.
K6-3
1999 --
The K6-3 was another improvement on the original K6 core. AMD was now able to put the
L2 Cache on die, making it much faster and closer to the
CPU. It enabled
AMD to continue following
Moore's Law by running at faster and faster speeds. The K6-3 did not have a long lifetime before AMD introduced their much anticipated 7th generation architecture, the Athlon.
Athlon
1999 --
Intel has always had the fastest microprocessor around, until now. Recent acquisitions of outstanding
Alpha designers from
Compaq, and many design improvements over the K6-2, allowed AMD to create the superior performing
Athlon. The Athlon had architectural improvements very significant in the
Floating Point Unit and with the
Alpha EV6 bus.
Athlon XP
2001 --
This processor was released with a whole new marketing strategy in mind: Performance matters more than
Megahertz. The
Athlon XP supported full SSE extensions as well as lowered
power consumption and other core architecture improvements. The Athlon XP quite often out performed
Intel's best chip. This caused
Intel to release the
P4, at much higher
clock speeds but with lower performance. The result was the
PR rating that AMD adopted to rate
processors by something other than just their
clock speed, which isn't necessarily equal to their performance.
Opteron
2003 --
This processor will be
AMD's first foray into the server market of microprocessors. Codenamed Sledgehammer or hammer within AMD, the Opteron will support AMD's first ever
64 bit extensions on the 32 bit
x86 ISA. This will allow
Opteron to support legacy applications (a crucial capability for large corporations) while enabling new 64 bit programs. The Opteron, as well as the next generation AMD core, will have several architectural upgrades. On die
DDR Memory Controller, instead of on the
FSB chipset, and
HyperTransport technology are the two major improvements over the 7th generation architecture in the
Athlon.
Athlon 64
2003/04 -- This is the desktop version of Opteron also running AMD's x86-64 ISA.
Company Facts
Headquarters
One AMD Place
P.O. Box 3453
Sunnyvale CA 94088
408-732-2400
800-538-8450
2001 Revenue: $3.9 billion
Total Assets: $5.6 billion
Number of Employees: More than 14,000
Stock Symbol:
NYSE: AMD
Logo: The initials AMD is an acronym for Advanced Micro Devices. The arrow icon symbolizes the AMD principle of growth in the right direction.
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