After seven quarters of bleeding money, Advanced Micro Devices will have a new CEO.
Hector Ruiz has stepped down as chief executive of the troubled microprocessor company, with Dirk Meyer, president and chief operating officer, taking over the reigns.
The news was announced on a conference call to discuss AMD's (NASDAQ: AMD) second-quarter financials, which were not pretty. The company reported a loss of $1.189 billion, or $1.96 per share, on sales of $1.35 billion.
"The time is right," Ruiz said today during the company's earnings call. "Barcelona is shipping, the conversion to 45 nanometer is on track," he added, referring to the much-delayed launch of AMD's quad-core Opterons and the company's upcoming smaller chip designs.
He also said the company has made progress on its efforts to streamline its business operations in connection with foundry partners, a plan it calls "Asset Smart".
"This is why the time is right to turn the company over to a new leader, one who has earned the trust of AMD partners and customers worldwide," he said.
Ruiz, 62, joined AMD as president and chief operating officer in January 2000 and became AMD's chief executive officer on April 25, 2002. He has served on AMD's board of directors since 2000 and was appointed chairman of the board of directors in 2004.
Meyer, 46, joined AMD in 1995 as part of the design team for the original AMD Athlon processor. He worked his way up to president and COO in 2006. He holds more than 40 patents as an engineer.
Ruiz will stay on as executive chairman and chairman of the board, working on the asset smart strategy and continuing the battle against Intel by "breaking our industry from the grip of an illegal monopoly," as he put it.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
EU Claims Intel Paid Retailers to Drop AMD
BRUSSELS -- European Union antitrust regulators made new accusations against chipmaker Intel on Thursday, saying it paid retailers to not sell PCs using chips made by rival AMD.
The "statement of objections" from the European Commission follows 2007 charges against Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) that claimed the world's biggest microchip producer gave computer makers rebates to limit their use of AMD (NYSE: AMD) chips or avoid them altogether.
The expansion of the accusation means the Commission is now weighing charges that Intel illegally fiddled with both the wholesale and retail channels in an effort to suppress its competitor.
"The Commission also considers at this stage of its analysis that all the types of conduct reinforce each other and are part of a single overall anticompetitive strategy aimed at excluding AMD or limiting its access to the market," the EU's executive body said in a statement. A Commission statement said Intel had provided substantial rebates to a leading European personal computer retailer, conditioned on it selling only Intel-based PCs.
Secondly, the Commission said Intel paid a PC maker to delay the planned launch of a product line incorporating an AMD-based CPU.
Thirdly it gave the same computer maker substantial rebates to encourage it to get all its CPUs for laptops from Intel, said the statement.
Intel has its logo on four-fifths of the central processing units that run the world's 1 billion personal computers, while AMD accounts for the rest.
The Commission could fine Intel, though any penalty would be unlikely to approach a cap of 10 percent of annual revenue. It could possibly damage the firm's reputation by labeling the company an unfair competitor.
Intel has eight days to reply to the charges.
The EU executive in mid-2007 publicly alleged three kinds of violations by Intel, including providing CPU chips to strategic customers such as governments and educational institutions below cost.
Intel has said repeatedly that it did nothing wrong.
In June, South Korean authorities fined Intel about $26 million, finding it had offered rebates to South Korean PC makers including Samsung Electronics and Trigem Computer in return for not buying AMD microprocessors.
One day after the South Korean finding, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission launched its own formal probe.
The state of New York is also investigating Intel.
In Japan, the Fair Trade Commission concluded in 2005 that Intel had violated that country's Antimonopoly Act. Intel disagreed with the findings but accepted the commission's recommendation, a move that allowed it to avoid a trial.
The "statement of objections" from the European Commission follows 2007 charges against Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) that claimed the world's biggest microchip producer gave computer makers rebates to limit their use of AMD (NYSE: AMD) chips or avoid them altogether.
The expansion of the accusation means the Commission is now weighing charges that Intel illegally fiddled with both the wholesale and retail channels in an effort to suppress its competitor.
"The Commission also considers at this stage of its analysis that all the types of conduct reinforce each other and are part of a single overall anticompetitive strategy aimed at excluding AMD or limiting its access to the market," the EU's executive body said in a statement. A Commission statement said Intel had provided substantial rebates to a leading European personal computer retailer, conditioned on it selling only Intel-based PCs.
Secondly, the Commission said Intel paid a PC maker to delay the planned launch of a product line incorporating an AMD-based CPU.
Thirdly it gave the same computer maker substantial rebates to encourage it to get all its CPUs for laptops from Intel, said the statement.
Intel has its logo on four-fifths of the central processing units that run the world's 1 billion personal computers, while AMD accounts for the rest.
The Commission could fine Intel, though any penalty would be unlikely to approach a cap of 10 percent of annual revenue. It could possibly damage the firm's reputation by labeling the company an unfair competitor.
Intel has eight days to reply to the charges.
The EU executive in mid-2007 publicly alleged three kinds of violations by Intel, including providing CPU chips to strategic customers such as governments and educational institutions below cost.
Intel has said repeatedly that it did nothing wrong.
In June, South Korean authorities fined Intel about $26 million, finding it had offered rebates to South Korean PC makers including Samsung Electronics and Trigem Computer in return for not buying AMD microprocessors.
One day after the South Korean finding, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission launched its own formal probe.
The state of New York is also investigating Intel.
In Japan, the Fair Trade Commission concluded in 2005 that Intel had violated that country's Antimonopoly Act. Intel disagreed with the findings but accepted the commission's recommendation, a move that allowed it to avoid a trial.
AMD Loses $1.18B and Its CEO
Seven is usually considered a lucky number, but not for Hector Ruiz. After seven quarters of red ink, the AMD CEO has resigned his post, turning it over to President and Chief Operating Officer Dirk Meyer, who had long been acknowledged as Hector's successor-in-waiting.
Ruiz will stay on as executive chairman and chairman of the board, working on the company's mysterious "asset smart" strategy and continuing the battle against Intel by "breaking our industry from the grip of an illegal monopoly," as he put it.
"The time is right," Ruiz told a conference call of financial analysts. "Barcelona is shipping, the conversion to 45 nanometer is on track. We've made progress on asset smart. This is why the time is right to turn the company over to a new leader, one who has earned the trust of AMD partners and customers worldwide."
Ruiz, 62, joined AMD as president and chief operating officer in January 2000 and became AMD's chief executive officer on April 25, 2002. He has served on AMD’s board of directors since 2000 and was appointed chairman of the board of directors in 2004.
Meyer, 46, joined AMD in 1995 as part of the design team for the original AMD Athlon processor. He worked his way up to president and COO in 2006. He holds more than 40 patents as an engineer. An AMD spokesman said there was no immediate plans to replace Meyer as COO and would stick with the existing executive team for now.
Right now, patents are not what AMD needs, it needs to make some money. The company just reported a second quarter net loss of $1.19 billion, or $1.96 per share, compared with a net loss of $600 million, or $1.09 per share, in the second quarter of 2007. Revenue rose to $1.35 billion from $1.31 billion a year ago.
The lion's share off the loss was a $876 million loss in write-offs from the ATI, which was two years ago. AMD has taken several depreciation charges for ATI over the past few years. These write-downs are simply a realignment of the balance sheet, saying that the company has less value on paper than it thought it did. No money actually goes out the door.
But in this quarter, the company was cash flow negative. It posted an operating loss of $143 million, even though its gross margin was 52 percent and expenses were in line with prior quarters. The loss could be attributed in part to the seasonally weak quarter and, as Chief Financial Officer Bob Rivet put it, "the challenges of the consumer macro economic climate."
The company will also take charges for the next few quarters as it ramps up to a 45 nanometer manufacturing process, something Intel is several quarters ahead on. Rivet said the company would take charges over the next few quarters as it brings its fabrication plants up to speed.
Ruiz will stay on as executive chairman and chairman of the board, working on the company's mysterious "asset smart" strategy and continuing the battle against Intel by "breaking our industry from the grip of an illegal monopoly," as he put it.
"The time is right," Ruiz told a conference call of financial analysts. "Barcelona is shipping, the conversion to 45 nanometer is on track. We've made progress on asset smart. This is why the time is right to turn the company over to a new leader, one who has earned the trust of AMD partners and customers worldwide."
Ruiz, 62, joined AMD as president and chief operating officer in January 2000 and became AMD's chief executive officer on April 25, 2002. He has served on AMD’s board of directors since 2000 and was appointed chairman of the board of directors in 2004.
Meyer, 46, joined AMD in 1995 as part of the design team for the original AMD Athlon processor. He worked his way up to president and COO in 2006. He holds more than 40 patents as an engineer. An AMD spokesman said there was no immediate plans to replace Meyer as COO and would stick with the existing executive team for now.
Right now, patents are not what AMD needs, it needs to make some money. The company just reported a second quarter net loss of $1.19 billion, or $1.96 per share, compared with a net loss of $600 million, or $1.09 per share, in the second quarter of 2007. Revenue rose to $1.35 billion from $1.31 billion a year ago.
The lion's share off the loss was a $876 million loss in write-offs from the ATI, which was two years ago. AMD has taken several depreciation charges for ATI over the past few years. These write-downs are simply a realignment of the balance sheet, saying that the company has less value on paper than it thought it did. No money actually goes out the door.
But in this quarter, the company was cash flow negative. It posted an operating loss of $143 million, even though its gross margin was 52 percent and expenses were in line with prior quarters. The loss could be attributed in part to the seasonally weak quarter and, as Chief Financial Officer Bob Rivet put it, "the challenges of the consumer macro economic climate."
The company will also take charges for the next few quarters as it ramps up to a 45 nanometer manufacturing process, something Intel is several quarters ahead on. Rivet said the company would take charges over the next few quarters as it brings its fabrication plants up to speed.
AMD Pushes 'Cinema 2.0' With Superfast Chip
SAN FRANCISCO – Hail, hail the GPU. At least that seems to be rallying cry of competitors ATI (owned by AMD) and nVidia, two of the leading purveyors of graphics processors. At a media event here today, AMD previewed its next generation Radeon 4000 chip capable of up to a teraflop performance.
"This chip can execute a trillion floating point operations per second or the same as a teraflop computer. This is a phenomenal leap for a chip that only measures a centimeter on a side," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president of AMD's graphics products group.
He said the Radeon 4000 will be available next week in PC add-in cards, branded Radeon HD, for about $200. Desktop and notebook computer makers will eventually incorporate the chip as well.
Want better gaming and graphics? Bergman claimed the Radeon 4000 offers more performance that all previous game consoles combined. He also said it has 100 times the compute capability of the IBM Deep Blue supercomputer that beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov back in 1997.
AMD (NYSE: AMD) spent the better part of a 90-minute presentation describing its vision of "Cinema 2.0," an ecosystem of developers and companies that hold the promise of delivering movie-quality realism with the interactivity of today's most popular videogames. Some demos included video games with near lifelike animations in science fiction-themed scenarios.
"Experts claim we are about seven years away from getting to the visual quality of movies" on the desktop, said Bergman. "We believe those estimates are off by seven years."
"Sin City" director Robert Rodriguez said of the Cinema 2.0 effort, "The industry's been dying for this." In pre-taped comments, Rodriguez said moviegoers are no longer satisfied with passive observation. "They want to be part of the process …. It's almost like a Roman mob, they want more."
He said movie studios are excited by the potential of this new generation of graphics technology which will enable more realistic, interactive video games to be released the same time or shortly thereafter the theatrical release.
The core of the issue
Analyst Jon Peddie said AMD is in a horse race with nVidia, which announced a new family of GeForce GTX 200 graphics processors today, slated for availability starting tomorrow. nVidia said the new chips deliver fifty percent more gaming performance over the company's previous GeForce 8800 Ultra GPU through a whopping 240 enhanced processor cores that can generate resolutions as high as 2560 x 1600.
AMD did not make all the technical specs of the Radeon 4000 available in advance of next week's release, though one source briefed said it will offer twice the number of cores of nVidia.
Both companies are taking a very different approach to advanced graphics than Intel (NASDAQ:INTC). At its Research Day event last week, Intel's CTO Justin Rattner said that long term Intel views the traditional approach of raster graphics driven the GPU as "problematic."
He said Intel thinks a new architecture based on aggressive 'many core' processors "will deliver a vastly better visual chip."
Rattner also said the first example will be Intel's forthcoming Larrabee architecture a many-core design for visual computing he said will be previewed at the Siggraph conference in August.
"ATI (AMD) and nVidia are the leaders in raster graphics and they see Intel's view as ridiculous," Jon Peddie, principal analyst at Jon Peddie Research, told InternetNews.com. "Intel wants to push the CPU and x86 processors as the solution."
Peddie notes that the Larrabee, due out next year, will have 24 to 48 cores, a fraction of the number offered by dedicated graphics processors from AMD and nVidia. "You can't expect a general-purpose processor to compete with a specialized one, it's absurd," said Peddie.
Still, he conceded, "Intel is the 800 pound gorilla" in the chip market and they will get a share of the graphics market "just for showing up."
Last week, Rattner noted Intel "has nothing against GPUs. We probably build more of them than anyone else." But he suggested Larrabee and other many-core processors are the chip giant's longer term direction.
"This chip can execute a trillion floating point operations per second or the same as a teraflop computer. This is a phenomenal leap for a chip that only measures a centimeter on a side," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president of AMD's graphics products group.
He said the Radeon 4000 will be available next week in PC add-in cards, branded Radeon HD, for about $200. Desktop and notebook computer makers will eventually incorporate the chip as well.
Want better gaming and graphics? Bergman claimed the Radeon 4000 offers more performance that all previous game consoles combined. He also said it has 100 times the compute capability of the IBM Deep Blue supercomputer that beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov back in 1997.
AMD (NYSE: AMD) spent the better part of a 90-minute presentation describing its vision of "Cinema 2.0," an ecosystem of developers and companies that hold the promise of delivering movie-quality realism with the interactivity of today's most popular videogames. Some demos included video games with near lifelike animations in science fiction-themed scenarios.
"Experts claim we are about seven years away from getting to the visual quality of movies" on the desktop, said Bergman. "We believe those estimates are off by seven years."
"Sin City" director Robert Rodriguez said of the Cinema 2.0 effort, "The industry's been dying for this." In pre-taped comments, Rodriguez said moviegoers are no longer satisfied with passive observation. "They want to be part of the process …. It's almost like a Roman mob, they want more."
He said movie studios are excited by the potential of this new generation of graphics technology which will enable more realistic, interactive video games to be released the same time or shortly thereafter the theatrical release.
The core of the issue
Analyst Jon Peddie said AMD is in a horse race with nVidia, which announced a new family of GeForce GTX 200 graphics processors today, slated for availability starting tomorrow. nVidia said the new chips deliver fifty percent more gaming performance over the company's previous GeForce 8800 Ultra GPU through a whopping 240 enhanced processor cores that can generate resolutions as high as 2560 x 1600.
AMD did not make all the technical specs of the Radeon 4000 available in advance of next week's release, though one source briefed said it will offer twice the number of cores of nVidia.
Both companies are taking a very different approach to advanced graphics than Intel (NASDAQ:INTC). At its Research Day event last week, Intel's CTO Justin Rattner said that long term Intel views the traditional approach of raster graphics driven the GPU as "problematic."
He said Intel thinks a new architecture based on aggressive 'many core' processors "will deliver a vastly better visual chip."
Rattner also said the first example will be Intel's forthcoming Larrabee architecture a many-core design for visual computing he said will be previewed at the Siggraph conference in August.
"ATI (AMD) and nVidia are the leaders in raster graphics and they see Intel's view as ridiculous," Jon Peddie, principal analyst at Jon Peddie Research, told InternetNews.com. "Intel wants to push the CPU and x86 processors as the solution."
Peddie notes that the Larrabee, due out next year, will have 24 to 48 cores, a fraction of the number offered by dedicated graphics processors from AMD and nVidia. "You can't expect a general-purpose processor to compete with a specialized one, it's absurd," said Peddie.
Still, he conceded, "Intel is the 800 pound gorilla" in the chip market and they will get a share of the graphics market "just for showing up."
Last week, Rattner noted Intel "has nothing against GPUs. We probably build more of them than anyone else." But he suggested Larrabee and other many-core processors are the chip giant's longer term direction.
Trial for Intel-AMD Dispute Delayed to 2010
The trial date in a long-running legal battle between chip giant Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) was delayed until 2010, both companies said on Thursday.
In the lawsuit originally filed in 2005, AMD accused Intel of giving computer makers illegal discounts and retaliating against manufacturers who used AMD chips or stores that gave significant shelf space to computers with AMD chips.
Intel has denied any wrongdoing.
The two sides will split 250 days to depose witnesses, with AMD getting slightly more than Intel, said AMD attorney Chuck Diamond and Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy, both of whom were at a hearing at the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in Wilmington.
The trial had been set for April 2009 but was pushed back to Feb. 20, 2010, Diamond said.
AMD had asked the court for 486 depositions in hopes of proving that Intel broke the law in competing with AMD. Intel sought to limit each company to 75 depositions.
Intel will also be required to produce Edward Ho, an Intel employee in China, for a deposition, said Diamond and Mulloy by telephone. AMD hopes that Ho's testimony will help them prove their case.
Also on Thursday, the Korea Fair Trade Commission in Seoul said Intel abused its dominant position in the local market and ordered a fine of $25.6 million. Intel said it would almost certainly appeal.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has an informal probe under way into whether Intel abused its dominant position, while the New York state attorney general opened a formal probe in January.
Last July, the European Commission in Brussels charged Intel with selling chips below cost and offering customers huge rebates in an illegal attempt to drive AMD out of the market.
In Japan, the Fair Trade Commission concluded in 2005 that Intel violated the antimonopoly act. Intel disagreed with the findings but accepted the commission's recommendation, a move that avoided a trial.
In the lawsuit originally filed in 2005, AMD accused Intel of giving computer makers illegal discounts and retaliating against manufacturers who used AMD chips or stores that gave significant shelf space to computers with AMD chips.
Intel has denied any wrongdoing.
The two sides will split 250 days to depose witnesses, with AMD getting slightly more than Intel, said AMD attorney Chuck Diamond and Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy, both of whom were at a hearing at the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in Wilmington.
The trial had been set for April 2009 but was pushed back to Feb. 20, 2010, Diamond said.
AMD had asked the court for 486 depositions in hopes of proving that Intel broke the law in competing with AMD. Intel sought to limit each company to 75 depositions.
Intel will also be required to produce Edward Ho, an Intel employee in China, for a deposition, said Diamond and Mulloy by telephone. AMD hopes that Ho's testimony will help them prove their case.
Also on Thursday, the Korea Fair Trade Commission in Seoul said Intel abused its dominant position in the local market and ordered a fine of $25.6 million. Intel said it would almost certainly appeal.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has an informal probe under way into whether Intel abused its dominant position, while the New York state attorney general opened a formal probe in January.
Last July, the European Commission in Brussels charged Intel with selling chips below cost and offering customers huge rebates in an illegal attempt to drive AMD out of the market.
In Japan, the Fair Trade Commission concluded in 2005 that Intel violated the antimonopoly act. Intel disagreed with the findings but accepted the commission's recommendation, a move that avoided a trial.
AMD Finally Offers a Notebook Platform
AMD is kicking off the Computex show with the announcement of Puma, its first platform for the mobile computing market designed to counter Intel's successful Centrino platform.
Puma combines a new AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile processor with ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics and an ATI chipset. This new platform already has a number of OEM design wins, including Acer, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, MSI, NEC and Toshiba.
The effort marks AMD's first unified platform of CPU, graphics and chipset. It's also the first time AMD (NYSE: AMD) has a real laptop story to tell.
Until now, the company has just taken its desktop parts and tuned them down a little for laptops. Using that approach, AMD has done fairly well in the mobile market. But now it actually has a mobile-specific platform, which can only help against Centrino, one analyst said.
"With this new Puma platform, they have, for the first time, actually tried to think about what a chip inside notebook needs versus what one inside the desktop needs, and they've changed the design in many ways to save power without compromising performance in this mobile environment," said Nathan Brookwood, research fellow with Insight64.
The Puma platform is launching with 2.4GHz and 2.1GHz dual-core processors, which include mobile-specific enhancements like core power management for idle states and battery management; and AMD's M780G and SB700 chipset, which features the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics. The graphics processor was top of the line two years ago and delivers DirectX 10 support for Vista and 1080p HD video playback.
AMD has no plans for quad-core notebooks for now, nor is it interested in pumping up the CPU speed.
"The processor has become a less-important criteria in the purchase of a notebook compared to memory, the screen and graphics performance," Bahr Mahony, director of AMD's mobile division,
However, it won't be the CPU keeping AMD from targeting the enterprise with the Puma. Instead, that decision is due to battery life: Puma will offer between 4.5 to five hours of battery life, but OEMs want five to six hours for business customers, Mahony said.
Still, battery life is a chief factor in many of Puma's elements. The design's 780 chipset has a feature called PowerXpress that allows the notebook to switch between integrated and discrete graphics on the notebook.
As a result, OEMs can build the notebook with a discrete graphics processor -- either AMD's or nVidia's -- and then the user can switch between the integrated and discrete graphics depending on the performance or power savings they want.
Switching from discrete to integrated graphics can mean 90 more minutes of battery life, Mahony said.
Along with becoming AMD's first unified CPU, graphics and chipset platform, Puma also assists the company in planning for the future, Mahony said.
"We found the platform to be a significant milestone for us," he said. "We were able to achieve balance throughout the platform and that experience will be vital for the next platform, Fusion."
Brookwood said it does help AMD catch up to Intel in the area of platform integration, since Intel has had something similar for a while. It offers CPU and chipset integration with a GPU, either AMD's or nVidia's, on its laptop platform. Still, he felt Puma is a big help for AMD.
"They won't take the top prize in terms of either computation performance or battery life, but they certainly narrow the gap with what Intel is offering," Brookwood said. "From a purely tactical situation, AMD is on track to deliver these products now, while Intel is having trouble with the schedule for their Centrino 2 platforms."
Intel had planned to introduce Centrino 2, developed under the codename "Montevina," at this week's Computex show in Taiwan, but has delayed its launch until July 14 to work out some certification issues.
Puma combines a new AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile processor with ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics and an ATI chipset. This new platform already has a number of OEM design wins, including Acer, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, MSI, NEC and Toshiba.
The effort marks AMD's first unified platform of CPU, graphics and chipset. It's also the first time AMD (NYSE: AMD) has a real laptop story to tell.
Until now, the company has just taken its desktop parts and tuned them down a little for laptops. Using that approach, AMD has done fairly well in the mobile market. But now it actually has a mobile-specific platform, which can only help against Centrino, one analyst said.
"With this new Puma platform, they have, for the first time, actually tried to think about what a chip inside notebook needs versus what one inside the desktop needs, and they've changed the design in many ways to save power without compromising performance in this mobile environment," said Nathan Brookwood, research fellow with Insight64.
The Puma platform is launching with 2.4GHz and 2.1GHz dual-core processors, which include mobile-specific enhancements like core power management for idle states and battery management; and AMD's M780G and SB700 chipset, which features the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics. The graphics processor was top of the line two years ago and delivers DirectX 10 support for Vista and 1080p HD video playback.
AMD has no plans for quad-core notebooks for now, nor is it interested in pumping up the CPU speed.
"The processor has become a less-important criteria in the purchase of a notebook compared to memory, the screen and graphics performance," Bahr Mahony, director of AMD's mobile division,
However, it won't be the CPU keeping AMD from targeting the enterprise with the Puma. Instead, that decision is due to battery life: Puma will offer between 4.5 to five hours of battery life, but OEMs want five to six hours for business customers, Mahony said.
Still, battery life is a chief factor in many of Puma's elements. The design's 780 chipset has a feature called PowerXpress that allows the notebook to switch between integrated and discrete graphics on the notebook.
As a result, OEMs can build the notebook with a discrete graphics processor -- either AMD's or nVidia's -- and then the user can switch between the integrated and discrete graphics depending on the performance or power savings they want.
Switching from discrete to integrated graphics can mean 90 more minutes of battery life, Mahony said.
Along with becoming AMD's first unified CPU, graphics and chipset platform, Puma also assists the company in planning for the future, Mahony said.
"We found the platform to be a significant milestone for us," he said. "We were able to achieve balance throughout the platform and that experience will be vital for the next platform, Fusion."
Brookwood said it does help AMD catch up to Intel in the area of platform integration, since Intel has had something similar for a while. It offers CPU and chipset integration with a GPU, either AMD's or nVidia's, on its laptop platform. Still, he felt Puma is a big help for AMD.
"They won't take the top prize in terms of either computation performance or battery life, but they certainly narrow the gap with what Intel is offering," Brookwood said. "From a purely tactical situation, AMD is on track to deliver these products now, while Intel is having trouble with the schedule for their Centrino 2 platforms."
Intel had planned to introduce Centrino 2, developed under the codename "Montevina," at this week's Computex show in Taiwan, but has delayed its launch until July 14 to work out some certification issues.
AMD Moves to Woo Overclockers
A CPU's clock speed -- the rate at which it executes instructions -- combines the system bus speed (define) with a multiplier that signifies the number of cycles executed each cycle. A 2.4GHz processor, for example, might run at 200MHz with a multiplier of 12, meaning that 12 clock cycles are executed at 200MHz for every cycle of the CPU.
By tweaking the clock, multiplier and system power, overclockers hope to get more power out of their system than it's supposed to offer. The downside to any tweaking, however, is that pushing components beyond their rated limits can make a system unstable -- but enthusiasts feel it's worth the risks.
"They feel like they are getting something for free. That's why they do it," Adam Kozak, chipset product marketing manager for AMD, told InternetNews.com.
As a result, don't expect to see the 790GX in business computers like Dell's Vostro line or Lenovo ThinkPads. It's purely for the hobbyist market, which is often willing to spend extra to squeeze out additional performance from their systems -- a fact that could help AMD (NYSE: AMD) in its sweeping effort to right itself.
Neither AMD nor Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) have tried to stop overclocking of their processors, but neither has officially condoned it, either. Instead, it's often a source of great amusement to both to see how far hobbyists will go in risking turning their CPU into a charcoal briquette. In AMD's case, it decided to make the process a little safer.
"This is what gamers like to do," Kozak said. "We can either ignore it and have an underground scenario where things are happening we can't control, or we can offer the right tools and not control it but at least say, 'Here's how to do it,' and we can market it as a gamer-friendly type of product."
The 790GX chipset is actually the product of ATI Technologies, which AMD bought in 2006. Having the two firms integrated was a huge help in getting access to technical information, Kozak said, making an overclocking-friendly chipset possible.
The AMD 790GX, designed for its Phenom processors, features what the chipmaker calls Advanced Clock Calibration for tweaking the settings on the CPU. The 790GX not only allows for enhanced performance, but also a computer can be underclocked to drop it into a lower-power state to cut down on energy consumption and heat.
The Catalyst software that comes with an ATI chipset also will have built-in controls for dropping the computer into a low-power state, and will integrate into Windows Vista's power management controls, Kozak said.
The 790GX also supports ATI's Hybrid Graphics Technology, which allows both discrete and integrated graphics at the same time. This is meant for the laptop market, since there is a marked difference in power consumption between integrated and discrete graphics.
When operating off the battery, a laptop can use integrated graphics, which aren't as powerful but don't draw as much power. Once it's plugged into a power outlet, the laptop can switch to discrete graphics for high-end graphics.
The AMD 790GX chipset also offers 1080p HDTV video and support for advanced video codecs (define) like VC-1, MPEG-2 and H.264.
Motherboards featuring the 790GX are expected to be available today from major motherboard vendors like Asus, Gigabyte and MSI.
By tweaking the clock, multiplier and system power, overclockers hope to get more power out of their system than it's supposed to offer. The downside to any tweaking, however, is that pushing components beyond their rated limits can make a system unstable -- but enthusiasts feel it's worth the risks.
"They feel like they are getting something for free. That's why they do it," Adam Kozak, chipset product marketing manager for AMD, told InternetNews.com.
As a result, don't expect to see the 790GX in business computers like Dell's Vostro line or Lenovo ThinkPads. It's purely for the hobbyist market, which is often willing to spend extra to squeeze out additional performance from their systems -- a fact that could help AMD (NYSE: AMD) in its sweeping effort to right itself.
Neither AMD nor Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) have tried to stop overclocking of their processors, but neither has officially condoned it, either. Instead, it's often a source of great amusement to both to see how far hobbyists will go in risking turning their CPU into a charcoal briquette. In AMD's case, it decided to make the process a little safer.
"This is what gamers like to do," Kozak said. "We can either ignore it and have an underground scenario where things are happening we can't control, or we can offer the right tools and not control it but at least say, 'Here's how to do it,' and we can market it as a gamer-friendly type of product."
The 790GX chipset is actually the product of ATI Technologies, which AMD bought in 2006. Having the two firms integrated was a huge help in getting access to technical information, Kozak said, making an overclocking-friendly chipset possible.
The AMD 790GX, designed for its Phenom processors, features what the chipmaker calls Advanced Clock Calibration for tweaking the settings on the CPU. The 790GX not only allows for enhanced performance, but also a computer can be underclocked to drop it into a lower-power state to cut down on energy consumption and heat.
The Catalyst software that comes with an ATI chipset also will have built-in controls for dropping the computer into a low-power state, and will integrate into Windows Vista's power management controls, Kozak said.
The 790GX also supports ATI's Hybrid Graphics Technology, which allows both discrete and integrated graphics at the same time. This is meant for the laptop market, since there is a marked difference in power consumption between integrated and discrete graphics.
When operating off the battery, a laptop can use integrated graphics, which aren't as powerful but don't draw as much power. Once it's plugged into a power outlet, the laptop can switch to discrete graphics for high-end graphics.
The AMD 790GX chipset also offers 1080p HDTV video and support for advanced video codecs (define) like VC-1, MPEG-2 and H.264.
Motherboards featuring the 790GX are expected to be available today from major motherboard vendors like Asus, Gigabyte and MSI.
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