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AMD Not Trying To Get Its Chips Into Low-Cost Tablets
jfruh (300774) writes "While Intel is going after low-end Android tablets in a big way chipmaking x86 rival AMD is taking a more judicious approach, looking to focus on the high end. 'This idea of contra revenue is foreign to us,' said AMD's CEO, referring to Intel's strategy of selling chips at a loss to boost market share. But will Intel's vast resources keep AMD in its niche?"
from a low end tablet
They're making enough money on their high-end televisions. Let Sony have the low end radio market....
'This idea of contra revenue is foreign to us,'
So they won't be selling weapons to Iran then
by those selling ARM. So why should AMD compete ?
The idea of throwing money away to press AMD out of the market is foreign to AMD.
using fusion powered yotta 3000.
thanks moms http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mom+kind+creational+compassionate pardon the typo {;^)-)-|
AMD used to provide more "bang for the buck" than Intel chips back in the day. Sure, they ran a bit hotter, but even 10% more performance for a bit more heat for 25% less than Intel was a huge deal back then.
Now, AMD chips are a great investment if you want to heat your room in the winter. AMD Chips are great at converting electricity to heat. I tried an AMD laptop, and that thing ran so hot at IDLE, I thought it would burn my house down.
Looks like AMD has lost its way.
The low end tablet market is sewn up by those selling ARM. So why should AMD compete ?
Because low end products have a way of supplanting high end products in time. PCs replaced most mini-computers even though initially they were inferior products. When was the last time you used a mini-computer? If AMD only competes at the high end of the market they run the risk of being slowly crushed as ARM chips become more capable over time. Intel recognizes this threat and is attempting to address it directly instead of pretending it doesn't exists. Even if they do stay at the high end of the market, it's unclear what if any advantage they have that will allow them to remain a product of choice there. Intel and others are perfectly capable of producing high end products too and Intel has a cost advantage over AMD as well.
Stuff like this is a big part of why AMD has remained something of an also-ran all these years.
A product that can't compete without subsidies is worthless. It doesn't get you foot in the door, it just burns cash. Look at the Lenovo k900 design "win". Basically, Intel paid Lenovo to put their chips in the phone, but as soon as the subsidies ran out Lenovo switched to a Qualcomm design.
Okay, Intel chips tend to outperform AMD on a clock-for-clock and core-for-core basis. So Intel has the high end pretty firmly locked in.
And Intel's going after the low end as well.
So where does that leave AMD?
Pretty much with whatever leavings Intel chucks their way?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
AMD has been mediocre for some time now. It is their business plan. Cheap and mediocre processors.
AMD serves the desktop/server-with-big-TV-Display market very well and should not be questioned. AMD also has a respectable position in the laptop market. The devices AMD's products run in better serve the consumer. They would be well-advised to avoid supplying to tablets altogether.
LOW-END Tablets are very slow with single-core/dual-core SOCs and I have zero patience for the 3-10 second reaction times and 2-4 minutes startup times on LOW-END Tablet GUIs. Low-end tablets also have less-power efficiency since they are old chipsets. Retailers selling the low-end tablets right now are dumping it to the public on a "Take-it-or-leave-it" basis before they start selling the new stuff when the retailers know full-well that these low-end tablets are inadequate for day-to-day requirements. It's unethical IMHO, but consumers are gullible. Tablets are inefficient without a keyboard. The latest trend is to get a bluetooth keyboard which renders the whole concept of tablets pretty much eliminated because keyboards are a necessity and not optional accessory. Tablets are inefficient for senior citizens with lower hearing/sight capabilities. Having to pinch/zoom is a pain in the butt because those suffering from arthritis in the fingers/joints won't like doing that all the time either. Built-in speakers are terrible for seniors to hear with and touching the wrong place with the ears on the tablet results in the phone call being disconnected. Hands-free is better for Seniors.
SIM CARDS/phone chipsets integrated within desktop/server motherboards is a potential market for AMD and its partners, but IMHO wireless should be used as minimally as possible. I am quite certain there are health effects being constantly surrounded by wireless energy everywhere around us, be it bluetooth, wifi or all the different phone/mobile data frequencies. I feel like my hand is being fried in a microwave everytime I use my phone for internet 3G or whenever I am on the phone call with someone long enough. I think it would be preferrable for everyone to use wired as much as possible for security and for health reasons when we are at home.
PCs and mini-computers were fundementally different, applications written for one would, generally, not work on the other.
They are both computers and the functions they serve are no different at all That's like saying a PC and a Mac are fundamentally different because their software was incompatible. The mere fact that software written at the time for one wouldn't work on the other could not be less important. What is important is the job they did. PCs gradually took over all the jobs we once used mini-computers for and the companies that built to those products went away. DEC was bought by Compaq, etc. Companies that come late to the party on the new technology often (though not always) have a hard time catching up. Intel underestimated the growth of mobile chips and now is scrambling to catch up to ARM and it isn't clear if they will succeed. And if Intel is having a hard time I can't see AMD having an easier time of it.
When low end tablets become more powerful: AMD has the products to just slot in and take advantage.
Several flaws with that reasoning. 1) Other companies have competing products already and AMD would have to provide a compelling reason to switch from their competitors who already are in place. Displacing an existing customer relationship is difficult at the best of times. 2) AMD products generally do not have any significant and lasting technological advantage over their competitors. 3) AMD is not the lowest cost producer (that would be Intel) and really cannot compete effectively on price. Intel can easily undercut them on price at almost any time and still make money doing it. 4) What is good enough now will not be good enough in a year and AMD's competitors products will improve in the mean time. Waiting for the market to come to them is a VERY dangerous strategy.
No, AMD is not locking itself out of this market.
There is a very good chance that they are. Given their sadly pathetic track record I'd inclined to be doubtful of their chances until shown evidence to the contrary. AMD has mostly made good products but they generally always seem to be a step behind the curve
The devices AMD's products run in better serve the consumer
lol fanboy much?
Where the bulk is, and where the money is. In the Good enough (TM) department, and in pretty much every modern console out there. Go troll somewhere else, wanker.
AMD serves the desktop/server-with-big-TV-Display market very well and should not be questioned.
The conventional PC market is already undergoing a substantial shake-down with people embracing smartphones and tablets in bulk. At the rate Android platforms are evolving, we are only two or three years away from the average phone and tablet being able to handle just about anything the average person might want to throw at them. For many people, current devices have already passed the good-enough milestone. In my immediate family, I am the only one who genuinely needs a PC - both of my sisters and their boyfriends do just about all their online stuff using their phones and own a computer or laptop they hardly ever use anymore and neither of my parents use the PCs I gave them for anything much beyond basic web browsing.
Okay, Intel chips tend to outperform AMD on a clock-for-clock and core-for-core basis. So Intel has the high end pretty firmly locked in.
Interesting to see how this changes. On straight up single threaded workloads, AMD is unlikely to pull even. However, the nanosecond latency with HSA can prove iteresting. So far about the only benchmark actually written for that architecture was the libreoffice calc one. We got to see AMDs APU destroy everything Intel has to offer on that one by a vast margin.
Not everything will work with HSA, but far more things than GPGPU due to the low latecy and large memory space.
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Intel and Asus are launching a quad core Atom Android tablet at 7" for $150 this week.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"Are you being held back by lack of drivers? Do you have an unsupported binary that you just have to run? That would be the only reasons to stay with x86."
Or because, you know, x86 provides the best price/performance in the server space.
"AMD has been mediocre for some time now. It is their business plan. Cheap and mediocre processors."
AMD is a good graphics company lumbered with a legacy CPU division.
"So far about the only benchmark actually written for that architecture was the libreoffice calc one. We got to see AMDs APU destroy everything Intel has to offer on that one by a vast margin."
If you're using a spreadsheet to do something so complex that GPU calculations actually make a difference to your life... you're probably doing it wrong.
This makes sense once you consider just how far behind AMD is from Intel with their CPU technology. Their fabs are still 28nm, which is an aging process node that has been around since about 2011, while Intel has been shipping 22nm for almost as long, and is on schedule to deploy 14nm CPUs this year or early next year.
The main advantage of process node size is lower TDP, longer battery life, and cramming more performance into less space and less power. This is precisely the kind of advantage you need if you're on a battery powered device. ARM keeps up because they have a relatively efficient architecture, but they still lose in performance compared to Intel because, again, their process node is inferior.
Intel is still more than capable of making better all-around processors for mobile than any of its competitors, but the main reason they've lost market share to ARM manufacturers is that ARM came first and gained a large de facto following. Intel is relatively late to the mobile game, and they're having a few initial difficulties getting their traditionally "big" (laptop grade and up) processors to scale down to the 3 to 5 Watt TDP range, which is what you need for smartphones and small tablets.
Not only does AMD have zero established market share in mobile, but even if they tried, Intel could easily squeeze them out by having simply better technology that will yield better battery life and higher performance. AMD would have a real hard time selling x86 chips that perform about the same as ARM chips with slightly higher power use, which I figure is about the best AMD can manage.
Honestly, AMD's CPU division has the stench of death on it. It isn't even close to being competitive, and hasn't been for years. The only thing propping up AMD as a company is what used to be ATI; their graphics products are still extremely successful due to a simple and efficient architecture that's very cost-competitive against Nvidia, and still way faster than Intel's fastest IGPs. Being on major consoles as well as having a very substantial market share on the desktop certainly helps. AMD should just demolish the rapidly-sinking CPU boat, and rescue whoever's worth keeping into the GPU boat.
for every quarter since AMD's founding, take the cumulative profits for all previous quarters to that point, minus the cumulative expenses for all previous quarters to that point (basically AMD's "net worth" over time), has AMD ever been in the black? if so, when was the last time? throwing money away is not so foreign to AMD as some might like to believe (hope)...
Intel now has a monopoly on the general-purpose CPU market. It's Intel or nothing. Could this be a problem with regards to price, and perhaps enforced DRM (if there's no competition Intel are able to dictate what DRM goes on the CPU)?
== Jez ==
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To quote AMD (pdf) in their 2014 Q1 earnings, a couple days ago:
We are on track to generate approximately 50% of our revenue from high-growth markets, including embedded, semi-custom, dense server, professional graphics, and Ultra Low-Power client, where we can create differentiated winning solutions by the end of 2015. (...) We used to be a business centered over one stream of revenue, one opportunity, the PC market. Now we've introduced five new ones with our traditional space; that's six key markets where we can leverage our core IP. (...) Now let's turn to our traditional businesses. In graphics, we see strong demand in the enthusiast portion of the market. Our industry-leading R7 and R9 products drove GPU revenue growth year-over-year and sequentially.
In short, they're transforming away from their "traditional" business and of the PC market graphics revenue is going to be significant. AMDs x86 CPUs/APUs are going to be a small part of their business, there's a reason Intel is aiming all the big guns at ARM because AMD has already in their strategy decided to get out of the head-to-head competition with Intel. If you don't believe that, read the above lines again. They couldn't compete with Intel when they bet everything on one horse, now they're riding five others as well? That's a slow exit strategy, milking the CPU/APU revenue to execute their transformation. The FX line is probably already dead, Kaveri/Beema/Mullins will keep AMD present in the consumer market a while longer but the revenue is funneled into all those other key areas.
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"Professional graphics" is where GPU companies go to die; margins are high, but sales are low.
The thing is, AMD makes it's money from the ATI (GPU) parts, not the CPU parts.
AMD has a guaranteed seat at Apple's table as long as they produce compelling GPU parts, even if their CPU parts are such disasters. I kinda wish AMD had not forgotten it's lesson learned from the AMD/Cyrix "weak FPU" days when they decided to put a weak FPU into the APU chips, thereby torpedoing the performance of every A-series chip. This was dumb thinking and whoever made that engineering decision should have been called on it.
Like, every time I go to consider parts, AMD's offering is decisively "middle ground", not the best performer, but not the worst performer, but the most energy-sucking model in it's performance range.