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AMD and IBM Working Together on Future Chips
oogbla writes "There is a story over at news.com which says that AMD is teaming up with IBM for its sub-100 nanometer process and is de-emphasizing its previous relationships in that area. Also seems that the Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology they were supposedly getting from Motorola isn't going too well and has caused at least one delay to Barton."
I am quite sure that IBM and AMD teamed together could easily give Intel a run for speed and technology. Alone IBM and AMD have some amazing technologies that have some amazing potential (like IBM's 64bit PPC chip coming soon).
...that i'll never get a ThinkPad with a TransMeta chip in it. I love IBM laptop hardware, and Transmeta seems to have a grasp of what should be in a laptop processor, but whether or not it will ever become a reality one has to wonder.
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I guess this means, that there might actually be a big computer manufacturer that will back AMD. I'm sure AMD execs are drooling of the possibilities of having someone in their corner against Intel.
From some articles I read in the past, IIRC, IBM is known for having some of the slowest management progression out there. I hope AMD isn't getting itself into an Apple/MOT stalemate.
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Here's another link to the EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/semi/news/OEG20030108S0038 (care of [H]ard|OCP)
Hopefully this means that the next CPUs out of AMD won't be able to warm up the apartment come winter.
Generally this means that AMD won't be working with United Microelectronics (UMC) anymore... a contract that was just recently made (January). (EE Times hints that IBM has been "muscling in" on UMC's turf lately - ouch).
The deal apparently marks an end to AMD's arrangement with United Microelectronics Corp., a Taiwan-based foundry with which AMD was to develop process technology and build a 300-mm fabrication facility in Singapore. Asked about that earlier partnership, an AMD spokesman said the two sides "are amicably winding up their joint development relationship."
I know it's not exactly the same, but remember what IBM did to Cyrix? They licensed Cyrix's chips and then undercut them in price, which I believe led to the eventual demise of their chip.
It seems as though making a deal with IBM is almost as risky as making a deal with Microsoft, although I guess dealing with Microsoft has an even worse track record (Sybase with SQL Server, IBM with OS/2, Sendo with their phone stuff).
Even after paying hundreds of millions to IBM, AMD should still be able to undercut Intel's outrageous pricing and sell chips of equal or greater quality (ie, chips that have a detailed instruction set, not chips that just do nothing fast) and still make a decent profit
Just my $0.02
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Sorry to say that, but it is true
No, thats not even close to true. It wasn't until Athlon that AMD could top an Intel processor in performance, and that didn't last very long either.
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Intel has a very strong history of designing chips that ramp up very well (except for their one CPU engineering failure, the Pentium Pro, which was too ambitiously designed).
You're kidding, right? At the time, the company I was with was targetting Pentium 133 as a baseline, but my development hardware was a PPro 150 overclocked to 166Mhz. It kicked the Pentium 133's ass.
I think what you maybe meant to say was the the PPRo was too expensive, and ahead of the needs of the broader market.
And "one" engineering failure? The i860/i960 were hyped as a "supercomputer on a chip", but were horrid to code general purpose stuff for (that's why they pretty much ended up as embedded processors in printers and the like). The iAPX 432 from the early 80's was a fairly impressive CPU designed to support object-oriented work, and it flopped badly.
Heck, even the i286 wasn't so great - it had virtual memory capabilities which the broad market couldn't make use of, yet, but they were only barely acceptable for more sophisticated systems (aka Unix), and that with hacks. The i386 was where things really got interesting...
It wasn't until Athlon that AMD could top an Intel processor in performance
I think that you're not going far enough back. Remember that AMD offered 386/40 when Intel stopped at 33 and AMD also had 486/120 when Intel stopped at 100. So AMD does have a history of offering higher performing processors (not necessarily faster clock for clock, but a part that is faster than anything that Intel had in the same family). I remember that someone also had a 286/20 when Intel maxed at 12, but I can't remember if that was AMD or someone else.
Wow, you got an interesting score for that?
Let's see...
K6 line... beat intel's pentium line in Mhz handily. My friend has a 500 Mhz chip in his machine. Nice and fast...
486 Line... My AMD DX-100 would like to have a talk with you about what you're saying.
386 Line... Uhhh... AMD 386 DX-40 anyone?
286 Line... the top notch processors had whose stamp on them? I seem to recall AMD logos on pretty much all of them.
In sort, you are way off the mark. I'll provide links and proof if you want.
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I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay for a GHz PDA unless AMD made a huge turnaround from their current reputation. That would be one really hot beast to carry around in your hand. AMD would have to put a lot more into making their chips run cooler ... though they've come a long way so far.
I think that's an interesting idea though ... and it could probably come to fruition easy enough in about a year. Hell, it probably wouldn't be even *that* difficult to pull off. AMD has the price advantage now, I say they just pull their current Athlon core, downclock it (it'll run cooler than the Thunderbird, I bet) and work from there. You'd have to convince people that it's more than just a "cool toy", though.
AMD has got a killer processor with trhe hammer but the current sample versions have a tiny cache. This is because AMD never had good luck with production flaws and their yeild is usually low (So I hear). So they are forced to making smaller chips. Now IBM have had some silly sized silicon experience. They are way way ahead of the others. especially as the hammer is a dual ISA chip so it would need a copy of each library for both architectures. Thus a need for a doubled cache.
I remember a colegue coming back from Hot Chips and there being a presentation by some people of the so called giant chips they theoreticly could make and IBM just blew them out the water with some 8 metal layer 5x5 cm monstrosety (numbers are prob. way out).
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