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Behind the Closed Doors of AMD's Chip Production
rokali writes "Tom's Hardware is running an article
on AMD's chipmaking procedure, plants, and future. Check out the pictures
of Fab 36, their new plant slated to open in 2006, which will put of the next
generation of 65nm chips. From the article: 'Currently, AMD's devices in
Dresden are still produced on 200 mm wafers; the new APM 3.0 using 300 mm wafers
won't be ramped up until Fab 36 opens. Production startup at the new facility
is slated for the beginning of 2006, at which point the company will have invested
an additional $2.5 billion.'"
It's all so shiny. In true geek fashion I got to the first glittery photo and can no longer scroll down.
Anyone know anything about this? What makes Dresden so interesting to AMD?
Oops. Sorry.
I was reading from the FUD PR put out by Intel about AMD.
A chip is a chip, except when you put salsa on it.
Or have it with some Java.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How about manufacturing AMD motherboards. The Intel chip + Intel board is a ridiculously stable combination. AMD should have a combo of their own to counter.
I bought a 3.0ghz (800Mhz FSB) PC almost two years ago and today, there still isn't anything out there that seems noticeably faster... I can't wait for Longhorn to come out; maybe then the processor industry will catch up :).
Or perhaps I should just by a dual processor PowerMac?
http://www.basicreations.com/
I say we just grow up, be adults and die.
Early '06:
"Dell considering building machines with AMD thanks to new fab capacity"
Early '06 + 1 week:
"Dell sticking with Intel"
Well, at least it will help remove one of the theories (AMD supposedly not having the capacity).
better have a big wallet...looks like a lot of geeks will be window shopping... the low-end Opteron 865 chip will cost $1,514 USD dual-core Opteron 870 will run $2,149, with the Opteron 875 priced at $2,649 http://www.betanews.com/article/DualCore_AMD_Opter on_Prices_Leak/1113922595
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
Why is the building so darn yellow inside? Is it important for the process, the workers, the ability to keep the environment clean? It's just so yellow, I think I'd get a huge headache working there.
I wanna go there and tell them to put 8 cores on my custom chip, :D
lnnb
Back when AMD still made chipsets for their own chips, the motherboards that used them were incredibly stable. I wish they hadn't stopped making them.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I'm betting the same people who bought SLI configs are going to buy dual core...
the problem with dual core vs. SLI is that people can buy one video card now and one later...
which is not the case with dual core
anyway I wonder if this all started people buying two of the same ram modules for more bandwidth performance
and I wonder if this trend will continue?
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
I'm suprised they let Tom's even close, seeing as they've always been Intel fanboys.
Maybe it's a case of keeping an eye on the enemy...
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
did. 3Q 2004. $43.8million net profit.
Looking at the die layout, its easy to imagine that AMD (and Intel) will be produces a good many dual-core chips with one defective core (maybe 10-25% of production). I'd bet that somebody finds a market for those partially-functional chips. I also wonder what will happen when people discover that one core can be overclocked more than another core. For applications/loads that only use a single core, the system could disable the slow core and run the fast core at full speed.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I seem to remember the speed differences between the VIA and AMD chipsets to be pretty small. I would take improved stability over a 5% gain in performance any day.
My wife still uses my old Athon 750 machine with a gigabyte MB/AMD chipset. That machine has been rock solid for five years now. Back when I still used it I did all the standard benchmarks and compared them to other Athlon 750 machines, and mine with it's 'slow' AMD chipset compared just fine.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Firstly, after reading the article, I was shocked to note that AMDs processors come out of one fab line, and the American fab line was flash only. If this is the case, well, wow. That seems a bit risky. If you get a tricky or persistent process issue (and it happens, no matter how cool you are), that seems like it could really impact AMDs output and yield a good deal.
Of course, that's the main question here, and no way you are going to find out that answer. Yield. How many chips are good in a wafer?
You can guess, but the answer may speak alot about AMD and Intel. It could very well be (here comes the flames) that Intel has an advantage in being consistent in volume and yield that allows them to keep large-scale contracts.
It is a big question in my mind if AMD can currently provide the large-scale on demand volume that the big companies require in some product lines. Could an HP, a Gateway rely exclusively on AMD for chips? (I don't know)
Certainly, it seems that have one fab plant only could be a big bottleneck or issue to make major vendors concerned and place a cloud on that question.
Toss in this which the fact that you can get chipsets (heck, network chips if you'd like) from Intel as well, and you have a real competitive advantage that is tough to beat. All your motherboard bits, one vendor.
And, sure, Intel chips have disadvantages, but in real-world experiences, the performance of similarly priced AMD and Intel desktop solutions aren't so obviously different that most people will notice enough to overcome those other issues at play.
Just a thought.
Which precisely explains why they've stayed in the game for so long.
Wait, no it doesn't.
Go troll elsewhere.
They took the photo through a yellow-tinted clean-room window. Taking a camera into a clean room is a lot of work and bother (it has to be, well, cleaned). I think the widows are tinted to prevent UV transmission or something.
How do you define stability Mr. Intel Fanboy ?
freezes? BSODs ?
wouldnt that be the OS ?
A small room.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
Doesn't that give you less space to "print" the chips on? Why not square?
I think you have been trolled.
However just since you're asking, if there's a problem with the CPU, RAM or motherboard due to heat or whatever, you will get random crashes which are not the fault of the OS.
Old AMDs had stability issues because of heat. Its not a problem with them anymore though, they've overcome that obstacle.
Quarterly results going back to 1999:
1999 Q1: ($128.4M)
1999 Q2: ($162.0M)
1999 Q3: ($105.5M)
1999 Q4: $65.1M
2000 Q1: $189.3M
2000 Q2: $207.1M
2000 Q3: $408.6M
2000 Q4: $178.0M
2001 Q1: $124.8M
2001 Q2: $17.4M
2001 Q3: ($97.4M)
2001 Q4: ($15.8M)
2002 Q1: ($9.2M)
2002 Q2: ($185.0M)
2002 Q3: ($254.2M)
2002 Q4: ($854.8M)
2003 Q1: ($146.4M)
2003 Q2: ($140.1M)
2003 Q3: ($31.2M)
2003 Q4: $43.2M
2004 Q1: $45.1M
2004 Q2: $32.2M
2004 Q3: $43.9M
2004 Q4: ($30.0M)
2005 Q1: ($17.4M)
At the vert least, 2000 did seem to be a good year for them, and losses (when they have occurred) have been light in the last 18 months.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Fab 36? Wow, the Thunderbirds have come a long way since the initial 1-5.....
That's just the way the crystal-growing process works.
...produced on 200 mm wafers; the new APM 3.0 using 300 mm wafers...
When I was in college mm stood for millimeter, which would mean we're talking about 8-inch wafers now, and 12-inch wafers with the new APM (rounded to nearest inch). Am I misunderstanding the mm abbreviation, or was this mis-typed in the article and supposed to be something else?
cat life | grep joy >> memory
I hope your being sarcastic, especially when the marketing giant Intel is the one that is really having problems right now, the only reason intel still holds so much ground is Dell, without dell intel would be a boat in the water without a paddle.
"If I was smarter I could rule the world!"
what about fab 5 ?
they are queer, but they sure can do some heavy lifting...
> In the new 90nm model of the Athlon 64 with Winchester core, half of the L2 cache is deactivated; the production process for the chips is identical to that of the larger variants.
Any one know whether this deactivation is reversible?
I know if I was building such a chip I would make it so either half of the cache could be activated. That way in case of a production fault, either half of the cache could be used. Consequently yields would go up and AMD gets more dollars in the bank.
If either half of the cache can be activated, perhaps it is possible to activate both halves simultaneously???
Doh you opened the door, now this batch is all shot!
As many have stated here, if the window is tinted yellow, the room inside infact has all yellow (amber) lighting. This is because much as a photo negative will expose under more than the slightest infrared lighting, CPUs will not be etched correctly if exposed to UV rays in the wrong areas.
The entire building is not yellow, as only certain processes are UV sensative, and once the part has been given the needed chemical baths they are no longer light sensitive.
White light would burn out the chips about to be etched as surely as opening the door to a dark room before the film/photo paper can be given it's chemical bath to 'crystalize' the paper/films light sensitivity.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
no I wasnt sarcastic. just stating the facts. So basically what you are saying is that without a customer a manufacturing company is nothing. Well wouldnt that hold true for any manufacturing company ? If no one bought from AMD , wouldnt they have problems ? And I dont know what problems you are talking about. are you talking about the record revenue or the awesome bonuses we have been getting or the annual 5.5 billion dollar r&d budget we have this year or the new fabs we are building all over the world or the 60 % profit margin we have
which one ? pray tell.
Well, how about the Dresden Nuclear Power Station?
Wait! No! That's in Illinois! Sorry. Never mind.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
The reason their new fab is their first 300mm wafer facillity is because Intel paved the way last year.
You're not sure whether you're sure?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Dresden was called the saxony silicon valley aready during the 80s. Famous products have been chips for a PDP 11 clone and the very popolar Z80 clone U880 which was the CPU of all east block home computers.
Money means nothing when it comes to R&D, its the technology that comes out of R&D that matters, if someone designed something in their backyard with 10,000 dollars and the same thing was designed using a R&D team with 1.5 million does the technology change? The answer is NO.
IMO, of course that all we have is our opinions isnt it now, neither of us are right or wrong, but in my opinion, AMD has been more innovative and more successful in the processor market than intel, whats really suprising is Intel was the market 6 years ago, AMD came back, and came back big, now Microsoft is toting AMD's 64 bit architecture instead of Intels, thats a huge slap in the face for intel. Centrino technology? Can we say marketing BS!! There is no new technology in Centrino, its all market propaganda, something intel is famous for mind you, and I understand if you are all hunky dory with your company cause you work for them, I am the same way with HP, but only cause I work for them... I still see flaws where flaws lie, HP Desktops suck ass, their laptops have room for improving, and why the hell are we making tv's!!
Even though you work for someone doesnt mean you have to agree with everything, can you not see the apparrent flaws in intel? Why would computer enthusiast choose AMD over Intel? Its simple, you have performance to dollar ratio's, AMD wins! Intel may not care so much for End User retail, I really dont think the majority of money comes from CPU's sold at CompUSA or mom and pap shacks, the majority of it comes from Vendor lockin, and thats what I am trying to say, Dell cannot afford to get out of vendor lock-in (it would to pricey to support), this is the only reason Intel still dominates, and no every market is not like this, only a couple I can think of even compare, Pepsi and Coca-Cola is one, but other markets are flooded with competition, you dont have vendor lockins due to the sheer amount of flexability the end user has to choose, sellers need to offer variety. This market is unique.
"If I was smarter I could rule the world!"
Background: I worked as an intern in photolithography at AMD in Austin, TX for most of 2001, and was in their FAB25 almost every day during that period. I was also one of the persons tapped to give FAB
The yellow light comes from the aggressive filtering of blue (and UV) light in the photolithography processing area. This is to prevent premature development of the wafer's photoresist during transport of wafers between processing tools.
The photo in the article is actually of a subfloor region, the equipment used to make the chips is above, you can even see the edge of the perforated floor grating at the top of the photo.
Semiconductor manufacturers are VERY private about the vendors (and model numbers) of their chip making tools.
AMD/Spansion's Fab 25 in Austin actually has two complete subfloors for the main fab area. One was "clean" the other "dirty."
Working in a fab "bunny suit" is actually quite comfortable. The fab temperature is pleasant, and the air quality is amazing (if a bit dry), I highly recommend it if you have any sort of allergies! You've never felt your lungs so clear...
About the only thing that ever sucked was sneezing in your hood and having to leave to change it.
We take a behind-the-scenes look at AMD's technologies for its 90 nm SOI, duel core and Athlon 64
I had no idea they were into core wars with silicon chips. Do they have them fight to the death?