Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: Hard Ball
THG is correct in concluding this, that AMD is intentionally reticent about its future plans for 32nm, and really went out of its way to make sure that no commitment about the 32nm transition be on the record for this Analyst meeting.
Fabless companies are supposed to operate that way.
Who is to say that AMD intends to have the foundry company fab those HK/MG chips in the dresden fabs?
TSMC is working on their own 28nm HK/MG process for the 2010 timeframe as well for SUN microsystems.
I'm not so naive as to posit this as a practical outcome for AMD, but it is an
additonal hand they need to start to playing as a newly minted fabless company. Getting foundries to compete for your business is how you keep yourself on the leading edge of foundry offerings - both technology wise and price wise.
I'm not trying to pick any fight, simply want to point out some obvious things that seem to be conveniently ignored by some in this forum for whatever reason there be.
As for the current situation with the future process nodes, in research, development and implementation, I'm sure that no one has better information than AMD, since FoundryCo is still presently a part of AMD itself. Of course the future of such things would be much less predictable, but still no one is in a better position to make such predictions than AMD itself right now.
Keep in mind, also, that AMD still have a large stake in TFC, as well as half the voting rights. This one will give them and ATIC at least some information not available to other parties about the progress of future development of process nodes. And this would also give them at least marginally more incentive to manufacture future products there. It's much more likely that they move their GPU foundry business to TFC than the other way around; although TSMC certainly would be competitive for any non-SOI business from AMD in the future.
Originally posted by: Hard Ball
It is really beyond me that anyone in this forum can draw definitive conclusions about when the 32nm introduction would be, from a few slides on which AMD intentionally tried to keep mum about its 32nm introduction of performance SOI parts; especially given that AMD itself does not want to publicly commit to anything, and may not even know the precise timeframe.
I must have missed it in the thread, was anyone really attempting to be so exact in their prognostications or are you just taking the conversation to a whole other level of nit-picking at what people wrote versus what they were really attempting to communicate when they drafted their post?
Also you should not so quick to presume that everyone on this forums, specifically this CPU forum, is operating with the absence of any additional insider information when they contribute to these threads.
They may not be able to say "I know XYZ because I work there and I just saw XYZ on the internal roadmap presentation yesterday", but they do lurk and when something as benign as a rumor does surface they can (seemingly without reason or justification) kindly suggest that such information seems logical to them (because they do know, but just can provide you the proof as to why and how they know).
Indeed, you did miss what was actually said, and what really started by objections:
Originally posted by: Phynaz
And 48 hours later AMD announces 32nm in 2011.
Which is simply, patently, untrue; a misreading of what was actually presented at the analyst meeting.
And you should not be quick to presume that others and I do not have informations from our personal sources.
Such people do exist here on the forums, you got to pay attention though to realize you are interacting with them. Get off on the wrong foot and they won't bother to treat you with respect of giving you the time of day, play nice and be cordial and you'll find yourself learning more than you might have otherwise thought was going on around you.
(sorry to get all preachy and self righteous on you here, I'm really just trying to make some helpful suggestions, ignore me please if you find this approach to be an affront in any way, that is not the intent on my behalf)
Yes, that is sound advice in general. If there is any appearance of my intentions other than simply arguing over the veracity of the facts. We can certainly treat eachother with respect. But keeping cordiality is really orthogonal to looking for facts; and learning requires some good grounding in reality. It's not just that this was a garden variety misunderstanding of some small facts; this is turning a conspicuously missing piece of information , and filling in the blank as if it came from the source; where the information being floated is diametrically opposed to the clear message of AMD's actual presentation. Let me quote what was said in this thread again:
Originally posted by: Phynaz
And 48 hours later AMD announces 32nm in 2011.
And allow me to present again what actually happened at the analyst meeting; not being pejorative in any way, just to set out all the facts and make it clear to people here in the forum:
Very early in the presentation (slide 16 for those who kept count and followed the presentations; you can see the slides including roadmap charts in our slideshow), a slide shown by president and CEO Dirk Meyer mentioned that 32 nm products will be finalized for a 2010 production.
... ...
Allen showed the desktop roadmap on slide 75. The audience was told that the 2011 Orochi processor will be the company?s first 32 nm client processor.
... ...
The good news, of course is, that if Orochi will be released in early 2011, a server product could make it into 2010, if the Barcelona and Shanghai product introduction strategy will repeat itself.
... ...
Doug Grose, ... ..., noted on slide 118 that the company will focus on developing a 32 nm process in 2009 and that 32 nm chips could be in production in the first half of 2010 (slide 122). He noted that a 32 nm SRAM chip was planned for a Q4 2008 production (which is usually the first test chip for a new manufacturing process). 32 nm tape-outs are scheduled for 2009 and a production ramp is planned for ?early 2010? ? which, however, referred to bulk processors and ATI graphics chips and not AMD CPUs.
... ...
But he(Allen) ended up noting that new (32 nm) CPUs (Bulldozer and Bobcat) with a ?new pipeline? and a ?radical change? would be released in 2011. Nathan Brookwood from Insight 64 also jumped on the new core and 32 nm question and asked whether we are talking about a 2010 or 2011 introduction date of 32 nm. He was told that 2010 would be the time and the fact that it appeared like 2011 in the presentations was because of the ?calendar breaks? in the presentation graphics.
... ...
Carvill got quickly back to me stating that the first 32 nm client product (Orochi) will ramp in the second half of 2010 and see a late 2010 or early 2011 introduction date. Volume production is planned for the first half of 2011, Carvill said. ?With these dates in mind, the 32 nm product transition is following a similar cadence of both 65 nm and 45 nm,? ... ... that means that AMD expects to keep the two year update in place, which is in line with Intel, but it also means that AMD is unlikely to gain any ground on Intel.
As I have said several times, AMD committed to shipping CLIENT MPU products at 32nm node in early 2011, but made no similar claims about server products at all. If anything was said about server products, it was that AMD will keep the same cadence of introduction as the norm for the company, which means that server chips usually precede the client products AND it will ship no later than 2 years after 45nm server parts shipped.
Originally posted by: Hard Ball
The slides about the 32nm bulk process is completely irrelevant to the discussion, and bears no way on MPU manufacturing one way or the other.
That is purely an assumption you are making regarding AMD's design plans and substrate choices.
An assumption that really need not be made, and one that personally I would be quite hesitant to jump to.
There is certainly some possibility that bulk IC can be employed by AMD for some of their products at some point in the future. Many people certainly realize that, especially since TFC seems to be poised to be part of 32nm IBM bulk alliance, and there is even some outside possibility of TSMC playing a role in this way in AMD's future.
But this is still irrelevant, since what Phynaz objected to my earlier statements was this:
Originally posted by: Phynaz
Uhh..Yes
Third slide here.
Look under SOI - no dates.
Look under the bulk heading, "Ramp up on ATI Radeon GPUs planned"
Here's a better slide, 32nm cpus in 2011.
That's what I was referring to. If bulk process was actually relevant for this point, then the slides that Phynaz posted would actually only undermine his own argument. But assuming that AMD would use SOI exclusively for the 32nm MPUs, this slide was irrelevant in proving his point of whether AMD's 32nm MPUs would come in 2010 or 2011; it refers to no specific date for SOI at 32nm at all.
Look over the entire train of argument again, you would see what I have been saying, and why I mentioned the things that I did.
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