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| AMD Ain’t Nobody’s Doormat |
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Featured Articles October 2001 • Vol.12 Issue 10 Page(s) 40-45 in print issue |
AMD Ain’t Nobody’s Doormat Chip Maker Refuses To Play Second Fiddle To Intel | ||
 For most of the lifespan of the IBM-compatible PC, there were two kinds of microprocessors inside: Intel or "other." Cyrix, National Semiconductor, IDT, Transmeta, and VIA Technologies have all fielded x86 chips compatible with the same hardware as Intel's CPUs. However, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is without a doubt Intel's prime adversary on the desktop. For much of its 22-year history, AMD has been an underdog that, as often as not, stepped on its own ears. However, this Sunnyvale, Calif. company started to do everything right with the introduction of the Athlon in 1999. Now with a substantial 27.4% share of desktop and mobile systems shipped to the United States consumer system market (Gartner; first quarter 2001) and two advanced factories (called fabs) in Austin, Texas and Dresden, Germany, AMD is not about to look back. Having fired strong salvoes at Intel's formidable position in notebook computers, AMD is setting its sights on the profitable server and enterprise markets. We'll tell you how it plans to establish a beachhead there, and how its current troops are deployed.  AMD's Bread & Butter The bulwark of AMD's recent success has been the Athlon processor. Although the current 1.4GHz top Athlon trails rival Intel's 1.8GHz Pentium 4 in the megahertz race, Athlon systems often perform as fast or better than Intel Pentium III and 4 systems in many benchmark tests. This has held true even when certain Athlon systems ran several hundred megahertz slower than comparable P4 systems. (For more information, refer to our Hardware Reviews & Comparison Charts link at http://www.smartcomputing.com.) Even better, Athlons cost less than Intel chips at a given megahertz level—much less than P4s. The Athlon's design is quite different from the P4's, with more total cache memory (consisting of two areas of high-speed memory for recently accessed data) and a different pipeline structure (which governs how commands stack up before the chip processes them). Current Thunderbird Athlons have 128KB of fast L1 (level 1; the closer cache to the processor's core) cache memory and 256KB of L2 (level 2) cache. Both caches are now on-die, meaning they're built into the actual core (or die) of the Athlon. As with Intel's Pentium II, earlier Athlons had the L2 cache situated on the microprocessor's package, meaning the circuit card was built around a slot-style processor and enclosed in a plastic case. Today's Athlons are built using an .18-micron process, which simply means that their internal copper wires (called interconnects because the wires connect a processor's transistors) are only .18 millionths of a meter wide. Previously, Athlons had aluminum wiring .25 microns wide. AMD switched the Athlon to copper interconnects with help from Motorola. Research-and-development giant IBM first came up with a way to incorporate copper wiring in microprocessors in 1997.
The Duron, AMD's value-priced processor, is basically an Athlon with smaller 128KB L1 and 64KB L2 caches. It, too, uses .18 micron copper wiring but supports only a 200MHz FSB. At press time, the Duron's top speed is 950MHz. AMD prefers to advertise the Duron's 192KB of combined L1 and L2 cache, and the Athlon's 384KB, because the chips' L2 caches are exclusive. In a traditional inclusive cache design, the L2 cache mirrors the contents of the faster L1 cache to keep data relatively close by after the L1 is filled with newer data. An exclusive L2 cache doesn't mirror the L1 cache, so the combined caches can hold more varied data. Besides microprocessors, AMD also makes nonvolatile memory in Japan under a joint venture with Fujitsu. More commonly called flash memory, nonvolatile memory stores magnetic data even when its power is shut off. This ability, plus flash memory's tiny size, makes such chips crucial for cellular phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), handheld computers, and a growing list of mobile devices. Our focus in this article is on AMD's microprocessors, but it's also important to know a little bit about the other half of the company's business. Compatibility AMD processors, such as the K5, K6, and K6-2, used to be compatible with the same motherboards and sockets as Intel CPUs. This hasn't been the case since Intel released the Pentium II in the Slot 1 configuration. Both Intel and AMD had slot-style microprocessors for a few years, then changed back to socket-style chips. However, you still can't use a AMD CPU in an Intel-compatible motherboard or vice-versa.
"DDR SDRAM is an evolution from the current SDRAM, meaning that their fabrication processes are not very different," says Linda Kohout, AMD's Duron brand manager. DDR's similarity to SDRAM makes it easier for memory manufacturers to make it, so DDR modules don't cost much more than PC133 SDRAM. "Rambus memory is more complicated to manufacture and is, therefore, more expensive to make," Kohout says. Indeed, Intel changed its mind about offering the P4 exclusively with RDRAM. The company has developed a redesigned P4 and the i845 Brookdale chipset specifically to use SDRAM, with DDR support likely to follow. AMD systems haven't always been perfectly compatible with new technologies out of the box, however. Device manufacturers still have more of a mandate to make their products fully Intel-compatible before worrying about AMD. AMD, its partners, and even Microsoft have had to release patches in recent years to solve some of the common problems with USB (Universal Serial Bus) and AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) implementations, for example. Mobile Processors We caught up with Kohout and Mark Bode, AMD's division marketing manager for desktop products, at the TECHXNY show in New York City, N.Y. and in Austin, Texas. At this time, AMD's big news is its new mobile and server processors. Athlon 4. For two years, Athlon fans have been waiting for a version for notebook computers. In May, AMD responded with the Athlon 4, currently available in speeds up to 1GHz. Although the Athlon 4 currently uses only a 200MHz FSB, it has all of the improvements of the new Palomino core. These include battery-saving features, design improvements, more internal multimedia commands (or extensions), and the ability to use DDR. The most prominent battery-saving feature in the Athlon 4 is PowerNow!. AMD says this power management technology extends battery life up to 30% over similar systems without such a feature. The Athlon 4's version of PowerNow! is nearly the same as that introduced with the K6-2+ and K6-III+ in 2000, but with minor unnamed tweaks. PowerNow! has three modes of operation. The Battery-Saver mode cuts performance for maximum battery life, and the High-Performance mode basically turns PowerNow! off. The Automatic mode chooses among 32 steps of clock speeds and voltages (from 1.2 to 1.4 volts) between the two extremes. This helps the Athlon 4 deliver enough performance for tough applications, such as DVD, even while conserving energy. As for design improvements, Bode says that AMD built power conservation into its mobile processors by optimizing their transistors. The Athlon 4's improved transistor design and logic helps it use 20% less power than a Thunderbird Athlon, Bode says. Certain pathways in the CPU are built for heavier electrical loads, or drive strengths, Bode says, and have correspondingly bigger transistors. He also says that those pathways can be shut down to conserve power. At those times, lighter transistors in other pathways will take over the CPU's processing, albeit at lower drive strengths. The Athlon 4 can also prefetch data, or guess what data will be needed next even before it's required. Previously, software would have to have specific prefetching instructions in order to do this. "Prefetching . . . is a caching mechanism that enables you to get, for lack of a better term, the next piece of data you need out of a sequence," Bode says. "If you're streaming a bunch of data, it can logically get the next sequence very quickly, so that improves your performance." Finally, the Athlon 4 has the new 3DNow! Professional (or Pro) multimedia extension (instructions) set. AMD says software developers can use 3DNow! Professional's total of 107 instructions to process 3-D graphics, speech recognition, and video more quickly. Bode says the new extensions can benefit commercial users of applications such as PhotoShop and 3ds max. 3DNow! Professional consists of 52 new instructions added to the company's existing Enhanced 3DNow!, which was itself an improvement over the 3DNow! introduced with the K6-2 in 1998. 3DNow! Professional is compatible with Intel's SSE (Streaming SIMD [Single Instruction Multiple Data] Extensions), introduced in the PIII, and MMX, which dates back to the Pentium. However, it doesn't support software optimizations for the P4's SSE 2. Mobile Duron. The new mobile version of AMD's respectable budget processor is based on the Morgan core. This combines the attributes of the desktop Duron described above with the Athlon 4's new features: PowerNow!, 3DNow! Professional, and data prefetching, along with a more efficient design. "The mobile AMD Duron processor is designed for the mainstream notebook market, users who want performance for everyday applications," Kohout says. She adds that the mobile Duron competes with Intel's Celeron in notebooks. Mobile Durons have a top speed of 850MHz at press time. Both Bode and Kohout say that the mobile Duron is the only budget notebook processor with battery-saving technology, but we should clarify that they are referring to PowerNow!'s ability to manage power during the processor's normal operation. In contrast, the Celeron doesn't have Intel's SpeedStep technology, which also does this. However, the Celeron does have QuickStart, which is essentially a sleep mode that throttles the chip to roughly 5% of power consumption when it's idle. AMD's mobile processors support similar sleep modes in the notebook's hardware or operating system. Compaq and HP are slated to make Athlon 4 notebooks, according to AMD press releases, and Sony, Fujitsu, and NEC plan notebooks based on the Athlon 4 and mobile Durons. Athlon MP AMD's new multi-processing platform, the Athlon MP processor and the AMD-760MP chipset (support chips), will give the company its best chance yet to become a household name in servers. Bode says that a microprocessor company with single-processor designs has access to about 25% of the server market, meaning that about one quarter of those interested in buying a new server would consider one with a single CPU. With a two-processor design, such as the Athlon MP, Bode says, AMD will be an option for 85% to 90% of the market.
"The Athlon gives a great performance, obviously, in a desktop configuration," Bode says. "It does wonderful things, though, for your Web servers, your application servers, file-and-print, data-intensive, or computation servers" when computer vendors combine two Athlon MPs with SmartMP, he says. Finally, the AMD-760MP chipset has a fully independent FSB for each processor to its northbridge. Motherboard manufacturers can choose to run the FSB at 200MHz or 266MHz. At press time, no third-party manufacturers had yet released their own chipsets that are compatible with the Athlon MP. "The big thing that the Athlon MP does for AMD is that it gives it access to nearly every computing market in the world," Bode says. "We've traditionally been a desktop player, had solutions in mobile (computers) . . . now we have solutions that truly service the enterprise segment of the market." The Athlon MP's maximum clock speed at press time is 1.2GHz. Future Technology Before the end of this year, look for desktop Athlons and Durons to switch to the new Palomino and Morgan cores, respectively. These cores will bring PowerNow!, 3DNow! Professional, and data prefetching features to the remainder of AMD's microprocessor lineup. Smaller processes. One of the main reasons microprocessors top out at certain clock speeds, such as 2GHz, is that they would get too hot if pushed any faster. Thinner wires inside a processor mean that a manufacturer can run it at higher frequencies without generating unacceptable heat levels. Look for AMD chips built on the .13 micron process (meaning they have internal wires .13 microns wide) in the first half of 2002. They'll be the Thoroughbred Athlons and the Appaloosa Durons. AMD switched its Athlons to the .18 micron process (with the Thunderbird core) from .25 micron last year. SOI. AMD also plans to integrate SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology into its performance (non-Duron) chips. SOI, developed by IBM, is a method of isolating the processor's transistors from electrical interference. This helps processors run with lower power levels and thus at cooler temperatures. Again, lower operating temperatures mean AMD can push its chips to higher clock speeds. AMD intends to release the first SOI version of the Athlon, codenamed Barton, in the second half of next year. The Hammer family of processors, described next, will also have SOI technology. 64-bit processing. Intel made news this year with its Itanium processor for servers. Itanium is a 64-bit processor, which means that it can address vastly more memory than the 32-bit processors that are standard today and thus work on exponentially larger amounts of data. High-end applications, such as CAD (computer-aided design) and enterprise databases, can benefit from the potentially higher speeds of 64-bit processing. This is a leap forward in computing similar in concept to the transition from the 16-bit 80286 (often shortened to 286) processor to the 32-bit 80386 (or 386). However, although 386 processors could run 32-bit, or protected mode, software, as well as 16-bit real-mode programs, Itanium can only natively (without emulation) run 64-bit applications. It will run 32-bit programs, but at slower speeds. AMD's 64-bit Hammer chips, the SledgeHammer for servers and the ClawHammer for desktops, are due out in late 2002. AMD calls its 64-bit architecture x86-64 to differentiate it from Intel's IA-64, used in Itanium. Bode says the Hammer family will natively run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. AMD is betting that customers will appreciate the continued backward-compatibility that has long been a hallmark of x86 processors. SledgeHammer will be available in four- to eight-processor servers, and ClawHammer will appear in desktop systems with one or two chips. One thing that shouldn't change for Athlons and Durons in the next year or more is the socket each fits into on a motherboard. AMD expects to continue using its Socket A design at least through 2002. This means that, in contrast to Intel's SDRAM-compatible Pentium 4, which requires a 478-pin socket instead of the RDRAM-compatible Pentium 4's 423-pin socket, the new Athlons and Durons shouldn't have to wait as long for manufacturers to develop new motherboards. The Bottom Line After reaching the 1GHz milestone ahead of Intel, AMD appears to have fallen behind in many other races: the race for top megahertz, for .13 micron chips, for copper interconnects, and for a 64-bit processor. These have been psychological wins for Intel in the eyes of consumers, as well as shareholders. Nevertheless, AMD excels at providing chips with performance comparable to or better than Intel chips' at lower prices. In fact, without AMD as a credible threat in the desktop and notebook market, Intel's prices might not be so humane. This means that if not for AMD (and assuming IBM or another large manufacturer didn't step up to the plate), personal computing might be much more expensive than it is. Even Intel partisans can find something to smile about in that.  by Marty Sems Click to view the AMD's Roadmap chart. Click to view the AMD's Microprocessor Lineup chart.
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