Is AM2 really going to support quad core?

[cmrmrc]

I know that a few months ago there was some articles saying that AMD quad cores will only be compatible with socket F, but now, i've looked at some sites and there were some recent articles saying AM2 is gonna support quad cores...

I'm confused as to wait for AM2 then maybe later upgrade to quad or skip AM2 and wait for "socket f" quad core...

 

[josh609]

Yea, is socket AM2 going to support quad core?

 

[MDE]

It probably could. There's got to be a reason for all of that extra memory bandwidth and possible DDR2-800 and 1066 support.

 

[jiffylube1024]

If it does (which I'm not sure if it will or not), it won't be until AMD get 65nm operational at the very least. 2007 at the earliest.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: cmrmrc
I know that a few months ago there was some articles saying that AMD quad cores will only be compatible with socket F, but now, i've looked at some sites and there were some recent articles saying AM2 is gonna support quad cores...

I'm confused as to wait for AM2 then maybe later upgrade to quad or skip AM2 and wait for "socket f" quad core...

Doubtful...as it stands, Socket F@65nm starts volume production in Q3 06 for release in Q4 06/Q1 07. These will most likely include Quad Cores, but no confirmation yet.
Fab36 and the AMD lines at Chartered are expected to be 100% 65nm by the end of H1 07, so this will be a screamingly fast ramp!
No word yet on what Fab 30 will be doing after that, but it's possible that it will be retooled to 45/32nm...though AMD has said that they are looking at opening a Fab in Asia as well, so who knows.

I suppose that if Intel actually sells desktop quadcores succesfully, AMD will have to step up to the plate and make them as well...we'll see.

Edit: BTW, as of yet, Intel has no announced plans to make server quad cores...which is quite strange.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: cmrmrc
I know that a few months ago there was some articles saying that AMD quad cores will only be compatible with socket F, but now, i've looked at some sites and there were some recent articles saying AM2 is gonna support quad cores...

I'm confused as to wait for AM2 then maybe later upgrade to quad or skip AM2 and wait for "socket f" quad core...

Doubtful...as it stands, Socket F@65nm starts volume production in Q3 06 for release in Q4 06/Q1 07. These will most likely include Quad Cores, but no confirmation yet.
Fab36 and the AMD lines at Chartered are expected to be 100% 65nm by the end of H1 07, so this will be a screamingly fast ramp!
No word yet on what Fab 30 will be doing after that, but it's possible that it will be retooled to 45/32nm...though AMD has said that they are looking at opening a Fab in Asia as well, so who knows.

I suppose that if Intel actually sells desktop quadcores succesfully, AMD will have to step up to the plate and make them as well...we'll see.

Edit: BTW, as of yet, Intel has no announced plans to make server quad cores...which is quite strange.

based on amd's track record the odds of them making this ramp this quick are well like 10:1 in my estimation.

i don tthink they have EVER delivered on time for a ramp.

amd seems to normally just take their old fabs and switch them to less important fab processing. the old fab25 in texas they turned into flash only.

amd doesnt have the money honestly to retool both plants as i think it would cost something like nearly a billion dollars. fab30 to go all the way to 45nm would cost a crap load, not to mention since the fab is not identical to 36 (like how intel does it with identical fabs) it would not be exactly the same and it would be not so timely to get it done. i bet they take fab30 and turn it into a chipset plant or something like that, and just continue to build expansions to fab36 which is a much bigger fab right now.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: hans007


based on amd's track record the odds of them making this ramp this quick are well like 10:1 in my estimation.

i don tthink they have EVER delivered on time for a ramp.

amd seems to normally just take their old fabs and switch them to less important fab processing. the old fab25 in texas they turned into flash only.

amd doesnt have the money honestly to retool both plants as i think it would cost something like nearly a billion dollars. fab30 to go all the way to 45nm would cost a crap load, not to mention since the fab is not identical to 36 (like how intel does it with identical fabs) it would not be exactly the same and it would be not so timely to get it done. i bet they take fab30 and turn it into a chipset plant or something like that, and just continue to build expansions to fab36 which is a much bigger fab right now.

Ummm...the 90nm ramp was AHEAD of schedule. In fact, AMD hit the halfway mark before Intel did, and Intel started 9 months earlier! AMD's 130nm was also ramped faster than predicted...
You're right about the retooling cost being ~$1 billion, but AMD had $1.8 billion in cash last quarter, and they will have significantly more this quarter because they retired so much of their debt.
As to the Fabs being different, AMD uses APM while Intel uses Copy Everything. With APM, they don't need the Fabs to be identical...it doesn't effect them at all.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: hans007


based on amd's track record the odds of them making this ramp this quick are well like 10:1 in my estimation.

i don tthink they have EVER delivered on time for a ramp.

amd seems to normally just take their old fabs and switch them to less important fab processing. the old fab25 in texas they turned into flash only.

amd doesnt have the money honestly to retool both plants as i think it would cost something like nearly a billion dollars. fab30 to go all the way to 45nm would cost a crap load, not to mention since the fab is not identical to 36 (like how intel does it with identical fabs) it would not be exactly the same and it would be not so timely to get it done. i bet they take fab30 and turn it into a chipset plant or something like that, and just continue to build expansions to fab36 which is a much bigger fab right now.

Ummm...the 90nm ramp was AHEAD of schedule. In fact, AMD hit the halfway mark before Intel did, and Intel started 9 months earlier! AMD's 130nm was also ramped faster than predicted...
You're right about the retooling cost being ~$1 billion, but AMD had $1.8 billion in cash last quarter, and they will have significantly more this quarter because they retired so much of their debt.
As to the Fabs being different, AMD uses APM while Intel uses Copy Everything. With APM, they don't need the Fabs to be identical...it doesn't effect them at all.

i think the 90nm ramp was more a work in progress than anything.

the first chips that came off it, the winchester ones were really not that great. that said, the 90nm ramp was i'd say the best ramp they ever had. it is what got them into the leader ship position they are in today as they had historically before this been really late on ramps.

i remember back in the day their .25 ramp was horrible i think it was over a year behind schedule. and the .18 was not that great either which is partly why the earlier p4s were very dominant.

that said, they had like 1.8 million in cash and 1.8 million in bond debt. being not a cash rich company it would be difficult for them to convert both fabs as some of that cash is undoubtly going to be buying equipment / expansion for fab36 right now, so they probably cant afford to do it for fab30. that is why ruiz released that statement saying they would sacrifice lower end cpu volume to sell more server chips as that is their breadwinner now, and they just dont have the capacity. at least they spunoff spansion and aren't going to further bleed away cash reserves with that money hole.

that makes tons of sense, if people are buying tons of opteron 8xx for tons of money, they need that cash much more than say 2 semprons.

that said i hope they pull it off as their competition has really gotten intel off its ass to do some work as of late. that and we'd never have things like $120 pentium D 805s without them.