News AMD 2Q20 Report

[Hitman928]

EPS 13 cents, beat by 1 cent.
Revenue 1.93 billion, beat by 70 million.

developing. . .

 

[Atari2600]

Think you kinda got it backwards. Selling more Rome makes it easier for people to stay with Intel. If there really is a situation where customers are being sticks-in-the-mud and saying "we will buy Rome, not Milan!" then it means AMD has done a poor job of getting QS where they need to go. That is what I mean.

Qualification is not only on AMD's side!

Ask anyone running large scale software infrastructure. Qualification is not trivial. Throwing a few QS CPUs on QS motherboards around does not solve the problem.


Having Rome to sell makes it easier for people to have confidence in staying with AMD - the biggest enemy is having to do something unexpectedly. Like having to rush through a qualification of a Milan CPU on their systems because AMD are no longer supplying any Rome.

Don't forget - you said:

I'm a little concerned about AMD coming out and stating that they'll continue Rome deliveries.

Not continuing Rome deliveries would lead to unexpected scenarios. That is not what you want to do.


New migrations will be to Milan. Ongoing migrations need Rome availability.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Think you kinda got it backwards. Selling more Rome makes it easier for people to stay with Intel. If there really is a situation where customers are being sticks-in-the-mud and saying "we will buy Rome, not Milan!" then it means AMD has done a poor job of getting QS where they need to go. That is what I mean.

I think we can't generalize - some part of the industry wants the new stuff straight away, others want the best that is known to be reliable.

I think Milan and Rome will fit those categories for a good portion of the market.

News coming from Intel might make some finally jump into Rome.

 

[Atari2600]

I'm more talking about those that have already made the jump, but have not yet complete their move to AMD.

Stopping those people from completing their roll out would be a disaster.

 

[itsmydamnation]

guys just pointing out you can buy gen 1 EPYC from dell/hp/cisco today...........

not sure exactly what some people expect here......

 

[Markfw]

guys just pointing out you can buy gen 1 EPYC from dell/hp/cisco today...........

not sure exactly what some people expect here......

Systems from them, CPUs directly from Amazon/newegg and ebay. And motherboards as well. I have 5 EPYC systems, CPUs all from ebay, memory and motherboard from amazon.

 

[ScottAD]

I bought 5k shares back when they were trading at 2.07 a pop... It's been a good ride. Overvalued right now but a great ride.

 

[Doug S]

Not continuing Rome deliveries would lead to unexpected scenarios. That is not what you want to do.

People forget that CPUs aren't just used in off the rack servers & PCs, but in a lot of embedded systems. I know people hear "embedded" and think some puny Cortex-M CPU or a microcontroller but they aren't all devices with trivial performance needs. There are plenty of markets where they use Xeons as the embedded CPU. If AMD wants a look in those markets they need to have long term availability and support of certain designated models.

You don't need to offer your whole line, but you need something to be able to sell to those people today and still offer them five years from now (even after something goes off the price list they need replacements parts) Eventually you will EOL it, but not until the customer has a pretty good idea of the number of systems in the field and their failure rate, and can place an appropriately sized order to get them through another decade or more of support in the form of replacement parts, depending on the support lifetime of the product.

 

[CluelessOne]

I bought 5k shares back when they were trading at 2.07 a pop... It's been a good ride. Overvalued right now but a great ride.

A little wishful thinking, a little informed choice at the time, but you hit a jackpot. By June 2017 there were good rumblings about Zen. Then the November leak and December reveal the hype is starting to be believed.

 

[Gideon]

A little wishful thinking, a little informed choice at the time, but you hit a jackpot. By June 2017 there were good rumblings about Zen. Then the November leak and December reveal the hype is starting to be believed.

June 2016, zen was released in february 2017

 

[CluelessOne]

Yeah, that. My mind is going down the drain.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I think we can't generalize - some part of the industry wants the new stuff straight away, others want the best that is known to be reliable.

That's sort of what I already expect, but the way they announced it (Rome will continue through the next year) indicated that Rome shipments would be happening instead of Milan. If the people who want "new stuff straight away" are jumping on Rome, that is not a good thing for AMD.

Yeah Intel and AMD do offer older CPUs for legacy support for long qualification periods, but that's been going on for some time. Why would they have to go out of their way to say anything about continued availability for Rome unless it was to indicate a condition out of the ordinary?

 

[Atari2600]

Possibly because they are competing for the same limited wafers?

[whereas traditionally, older CPUs use older processes]

 

[DrMrLordX]

Possibly because they are competing for the same limited wafers?

From what I understand, TSMC's 7nm lines are tooled for N7, N7P, and N6. N7+ comes from different lines. There should not be a competition between the two for wafers unless AMD has some kind of oddball either/or arrangement with TSMC.

 

[Atari2600]

Oh.

Is Zen2 definitely N7 and Zen3 N7+? [not AMD PR nomenclature, but TSMC nomenclature]

(especially considering the recent speed bump seen on the desktop Zen2 parts)

AMD Clarifies Comments on 7nm / 7nm+ for Future Products: EUV Not Specified

www.anandtech.com

AMD used the term ‘7nm+’ when referring to products beyond the first iteration of 7nm. AMD has today clarified to us that this does not mean they are using TSMC’s N7+ process node for those items.

 

[jpiniero]

From what I understand, TSMC's 7nm lines are tooled for N7, N7P, and N6. N7+ comes from different lines. There should not be a competition between the two for wafers unless AMD has some kind of oddball either/or arrangement with TSMC.

7+ uses EUV but IIRC it's only on a couple layers. The rest of the equipment in the pipeline is presumably the same as regular 7.

Maybe it's the kind of thing where they built an additional production line that can do either 7 or 7+.

 

[Gideon]

I still don't get it whyy is everybody discarding the possibility that AMD is using all available 7nm+ wafers they get and building rome on 7nm in addition to that (on lines not supporting 7nm+).

Coreteks mentioned that the new xbox is also almost certainly built on 7nm+, most probably so is PS5. They just might not have enough wafers available.

 

[Atari2600]

I still don't get it whyy is everybody discarding the possibility that AMD is using all available 7nm+ wafers they get and building rome on 7nm in addition to that (on lines not supporting 7nm+).

Also a good point - better for AMD to make a Rome sale at a reduced profit than not order those N7 wafer and surrender it to a Xeon.

 

[A///]

I wonder what Mlid has to say. Must find the circus tent, clown car and costume first.

 

[lobz]

Yeah, that. My mind is going down the drain.

Say hi to mine for me please, I've lost it somewhere down there.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Is Zen2 definitely N7 and Zen3 N7+? [not AMD PR nomenclature, but TSMC nomenclature]

Pretty sure there was confirmation in the Zen3/Ryzen 4000 thread.

(especially considering the recent speed bump seen on the desktop Zen2 parts)

That speed bump was really low, sadly. Renoir is showing more improvements in clockspeed/IF speed than the XT chips.

7+ uses EUV but IIRC it's only on a couple layers. The rest of the equipment in the pipeline is presumably the same as regular 7.

Maybe it's the kind of thing where they built an additional production line that can do either 7 or 7+.

Hmm. Weird if true, but anything is possible.

 

[AtenRa]

Q3 2020 will be the first time that AMDs Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue will reach and surpass the 1 Billion.