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For AMD Success Means Problems

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the too-much-money dept.

An anonymous reader writes "AMD's success with its dual-core Opteron and Athlon processors has created something of a happy problem for the company. It can't make its products fast enough to meet demand. Just the same, with the Intel price war heating up and new 65-nanometer manufacturing technology being implemented in its factories, AMD has a lot of balls in the air right now." From the News.com article: "AMD's current pickle is the result of its success, which makes it a little easier to swallow for company executives. Demand is high, but the company's dual-core processors still use its 90-nanometer manufacturing technology. Intel's chips, on the other hand, are built using the smaller transistors provided by its 65-nanometer manufacturing technology. Not only is AMD using larger transistors, but its dual-core Opteron and Athlon 64 processors contain two processing cores integrated onto a single piece of silicon, or a die. This design has given AMD great performance during the past few years, but resulted in processors that were almost twice the size of its single-core chips."

7 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. I hate it when... by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hate it when my balls are in the air.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    1. Re:I hate it when... by nschubach · · Score: 3, Funny

      Both quotes are laced with falic symbology:
      "AMD has a lot of balls in the air right now."

      "AMD's current pickle[...]"

      "[...]makes it a little easier to swallow[...]"

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  2. No wonder AMD is having problems... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    From the News.com article: "AMD's current pickle ..."
    Well, *No wonder* AMD is having problems... they should NOT be making pickles, they should be making chips!

    TDz.

  3. Watch out for an Axe... by Numbah+One · · Score: 3, Funny
    AMD has a lot of balls in the air right now
    Hopefully, they won't get them chopped off.
  4. Moo by Chacham · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's better than Intel's Pentium problem. They simply couldn't do the math!

    Q: Why did they call it a Pentium instead of 586.
    A: When they booted up the first Pentium and added 100 to 486, it answered 585.32752365107239874

    --
    Have you read my journal today?
  5. Re:Oblig. Boondock Saints by value_added · · Score: 4, Funny

    Symboligy? I think the word you're looking for is "symbolism"

    He lost me at "falic".

  6. Re:Does size matter? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 3, Funny
    A fully-functional die is an 800-series Opteron. It has loads of cache and four working HyperTransport links. If some of the cache doesn't work (most likely, since most of the die of any modern processor is cache) then it becomes a cheaper model. If some of the HT links aren't working, then it is downgraded to a 400, 200 or 100 series. In the worst case, it becomes an Athlon 64, or even a Semperon. If an entire core is too defective to use then it becomes a single-core part.


    [putting on clownish AMD fanboy hat just for fun]

    "At what point does the die become defective enough that they ship it to Intel to be a Pentium IV?"

    [rim-shot]