Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

AMD Acquires SeaMicro For $334 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:08:56 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices has announced that they have acquired SeaMicro for $334 million, including $281 million in cash. SeaMicro is known for having clients like Facebook and Google. SeaMicro makes energy efficient “microservers.” They use low-power chips from Intel and Samsung to perform real-time data analysis jobs by creating a “fabric” of multiple servers and data storage units.

AMD plans on allowing SeaMicro to work independently after the deal closes this month. AMD will be integrating SeaMicro’s fabric technology to their own higher-power Opteron processors. Those new products are expected at the end of the year. SeaMicro’s technology works in microservers with one-quarter of the power and one-sixth of the space used by conventional machines.

This is AMD’s largest acquisitions since Rory P. Read has been CEO of the company. He joined AMD this past August. AMD acknowledged that they paid a high price for SeaMicro, but they were able to win a bidding war against other interested parties. Using SeaMicro, AMD will offer servers that compete with HP and Dell servers.

[NYT]

AMD Poaches HP For CIO Michael Wolfe

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:36:46 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) has poached an executive from Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) to become their new CIO. Michael Wolfe worked at HP for five years with the most recent position being VP for Information Technology. Before that, Wolfe worked at Motorola for 24 years. “Mike has effectively led IT transformations constantly focusing on reducing operating costs and significantly improving business innovation,” stated AMD interim CEO Thomas Seifert. “His considerable talent and experience will help AMD to continue strengthening our IT infrastructure and streamline our business based on our own products and platforms.” [AllThingsD]

AMD COO Bob Rivet Stepping Down

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:09:47 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) chief operating officer Bob Rivet is stepping down from the company. This is one month after CEO Dirk Meyer stepped down. Rivet joined AMD in 2000 as CFO. Rivet will be pursuing other opportunities. AMD SVP of corporate strategy Marty Seyer is also stepping down for similar reasons. Meyer resigned last month because of a disagreement with AMD’s board of directors. AMD CFO Thomas Seifert is acting CEO while the board is looking for Meyer’s replacement. [InformationWeek]

AMD CEO Dirk Meyer Resigns

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 02:14:55 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) CEO Dirk Meyer has stepped down after reaching an agreement with the company board. AMD CFO Thomas Siefert will be filling in Meyer for the time being. Meyer had been working at AMD since 1995. AMD announced preliminary revenue results for the 4th quarter ahead of time too. The company revenue will be $1.65 billion, which is ahead of what analysts are expecting. [CNET]

AMD Announces New Line Of Chips At CES

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:15:53 +0000

At the CES conference this year Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) announced the Fusion line of chips this week at CES. The company started working on Fusion the chips in 2006 after they acquired ATI Technologies. These new chips combine a microprocessor and graphics circuitry on the silicon. “As far back as 2005, we saw that the integration of the CPU (central processing unit) and the GPU (graphics processing unit) was inevitable,” stated AMD General Manager of the products group Rick Bergman.

AMD’s Zacate and Ontario chipsets are made for mobile devices. And eventually AMD’s Fusion chips will be able to work on computers, netbooks, tablets, and laptops. AMD also announced the AMD Radeon HD 6000M graphic chips for notebooks. The 6000M is the successor to the second-generation DX11 mobile chip. About 25 million DX11 chips have been shipped to 10 major computer companies.

[VentureBeat]

AMD Launches Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 05:51:18 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) has announced a couple of new video cards in the Radeon HD 6900 series. The Radeon 6970 and the 6950 is replacing the Radeon HD 5870. The new Radeon 6900 series cards have Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA) with improved visual qualities and Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA). The new cards are compatible with DirectX 9, DirectX D10, and DirectX 11.

The HD 6970 has an 880MHz clock, 1,536 stream processors, and 176 GBps memory bandwidth. The HD 6950 has an 800MHz clock and 1,408 stream processors. These two video cards are expected to go for sale immediately. The 6970 for $369 and the 6950 for $299.

Full press release below:

AMD Launches Its Most Advanced Enthusiast GPU Ever, AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 Series Graphics

— Enhanced second-generation architecture supporting DirectX® 11, new image quality features, AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology and up to 2GB of graphics memory for high-resolution gaming —

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Dec. 15, 2010 — AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics, its most advanced enthusiast GPU representing the intelligent choice for enthusiast gamers. The AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series of graphics cards provides gamers with an enhanced second-generation, Microsoft DirectX® 11-capable architecture for breakthrough performance, advanced image quality features for the best looking games, and innovative AMD PowerTune power management technology that dynamically adjusts power draw on the fly. With flexible and cost-effective AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology and AMD HD3D technology for 3D entertainment, the new AMD Radeon™ HD 6970 and AMD Radeon™ HD 6950 graphics cards offer The Ultimate Visual Experience™. Graphics cards in the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series are available immediately from retailers worldwide, with select models starting at $299 US SEP.

“AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics feature AMD’s second-generation, DirectX® 11-capable architecture, new image quality improvements and up to 2GB of graphics frame buffer, making it an intelligent choice for gamers and enthusiasts,” said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, GPU Division, AMD. “Delivering DirectX® 11 performance with intelligent tessellation, image quality improvements with new anti-aliasing modes and even intelligent power consumption with AMD PowerTune technology, the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics cards make an excellent gift this holiday season.”

Efficient Architecture for Leading DirectX® 11 Performance
Improved architecture for greater performance: With AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics, AMD has further improved its GPU design efficiency, realizing a 10 percent improvement in performance/mm2.[1] AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics provide an extremely smooth and efficient computing experience, enabling gamers to realize unparalleled image quality.

New AMD PowerTune technology: Designed with intelligent power tuning features, including the introduction of enhanced power containment, the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series automatically adjusts GPU power draw by dynamically controlling clocks speeds, allowing gamers advanced performance inside of the power envelope they specify.[2]

The time to upgrade is now: Gamers looking to move to a DirectX® 11-capable GPU will find there has never been a better time to upgrade, with the AMD Radeon™ HD 6970 offering up to 2.5 times the gaming performance of 2008’s similarly priced high-end graphics solution.[3]

Intelligent tessellation: The AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series of graphics cards features dual 8th generation tessellation units, delivering up to 2.9x tessellation performance compared to ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 graphics.[4]

Increased memory for higher image quality: With 2GB of video memory serving as the new standard for graphics card frame buffers, gamers can enjoy superior quality graphics without needing to increase the memory footprint, even at extreme resolutions.

The Ultimate Visual Experience™: As AMD’s most advanced DirectX® 11-capable GPU, AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics offer a single high-performance solution for a realistic visual experience. DirectX®11 has quickly become the new standard for PC games and the majority of game developers chose to develop their DirectX® 11 games on AMD Radeon™ graphics cards. Beyond DirectX® 11 games, the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series also enables an exceptional gameplay experience in DirectX® 9, DirectX® 10, DirectX® 10.1 and OpenGL titles in single card or multi-card AMD CrossFireX™ configurations.[5]

An Advanced Gaming Experience with AMD Eyefinity Technology and Advanced Display Options

Improved image quality: Enhanced anti-aliasing features enables dramatically improved image quality and enhanced visual quality features for intensely realistic looking games. New features include Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA), which uses a new sampling technique to help improve visual quality, Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA), compatible with any DirectX® 9, DirectX® 10, or DirectX® 11 application, and improved anisotropic filtering.

Simple, flexible, affordable multi-display computing with AMD Eyefinity technology: Providing an expanded and more immersive field of view, AMD Eyefinity technology continues to be the most affordable multi-display solution available, offering incredible choice in display compatibility and configurations.[6] More than 60 game titles have been AMD Eyefinity-validated or are AMD Eyefinity-ready titles, and hundreds more are AMD Eyefinity-compatible.

Continued industry leadership in multi-display computing: The AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series of graphics cards offer support for both DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a, offering enthusiasts incredible multi-monitor configuration options, flexibility in display selection, and new DisplayPort audio features.

3D entertainment choices with AMD HD3D technology: AMD continues to deliver a broad and affordable selection of 3D solutions with the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics cards, featuring AMD HD3D Technology, and backed by our open 3D initiative for stereo 3D gaming and movies.[7]

Accelerate Your Life with AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing
AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology lets you do more, faster: Enthusiasts will enjoy improved performance and new features in top media, entertainment and productivity applications with AMD APP technology.[8]

Enhanced video quality features: AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics cards feature Unified Video Decoder 3 (UVD3), a dedicated video playback accelerator that helps users get the most out of HD video, online video and Blu-ray™ 3D, while enjoying a range of video quality improvements such as advanced post-processing and scaling, dynamic contrast enhancement, color correction and more.
Extensive support of industry standards: AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics cards fully support DirectCompute and OpenCL™, ensuring broad application support today and tomorrow.

AMD Makes $1.65 Billion In Q2 Revenue

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:35:28 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) has made $1.65 billion in revenue for the second quarter. However AMD is still in the red with a net loss of $43 million. AMD made 5% more revenue in the first quarter of 2010 and a 40% increase since Q2 of 2009 when they lost $330 million. [BusinessWire]

AMD Demonstrates DirectX 11 GPU At Computex

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:53:17 +0000

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of APIs for handling multimedia and video games. The current version available is DirectX 10 and it comes bundled with Windows Vista. There isn’t a way to run DirectX 10 applications on Windows XP and the next version of DirectX will be running on Windows 7. DirectX 11 recently was demonstrated at the Computex conference in Taiwan by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Below is the full press release (via Engadget):

AMD Demonstrates World’s First Microsoft DirectX® 11 Graphics Processor

? AMD previews significant improvements to the digital media and gaming experience, commits to bring DirectX 11 to market first ?

COMPUTEX 2009, Taipei – June 3, 2009 – At a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan today, AMD (NYSE: AMD) publicly demonstrated the world’s first Microsoft DirectX® 11 graphics processor. The series of demonstrations shed new light on the significantly improved computing experience set to debut at the end of 2009.1 The fusion of AMD’s new ground-breaking graphics processors with the forthcoming DirectX 11 programming interface is set to forever change both applications and PC gaming for the better. To illustrate, AMD showed numerous examples of faster application performance and new game features using the world’s first true DirectX 11 graphics processor.

· Get ready for a revolution: Games and other applications are about to get a lot better as a result of AMD’s new graphics hardware and DirectX 11. DirectX 11 features such as tessellation will bring consumers higher quality, superior performing games making use of 6th generation AMD technology. Another DirectX 11 feature, the compute shader, will enable AMD’s DirectX 11 graphics cards to help make Windows 7 run faster in a wide number of applications and in a manner that’s completely transparent to users, for example, in seamlessly accelerating the conversion of video for playback on portable media players through a drag-and-drop interface.2

· DirectX 11 done right on AMD: The development of DirectX 11 has been broadly influenced by AMD graphics technology. Each new version of DirectX builds on the versions that came before it, and many of the capabilities of DirectX 11 were pioneered on AMD GPUs, including DirectX 10.1, tessellation, compute shaders, Fetch4, custom filter anti-aliasing and high-definition ambient occlusion shading.

· Bringing consumers DirectX 11 sooner: The preview of the world’s first DirectX 11 graphics processor at Computex 2009 validates AMD’s commitment to delivering leading technologies to market before anyone else, and to continuing to foster innovation in computing.

· Fueling developer demand: It’s not just consumers who are excited about the prospects of DirectX 11, game developers are also incredibly enthusiastic about taking advantage of new DirectX 11 hardware to bring even better games to market, in large part due to AMD’s readiness to meet their DirectX 11 needs. Many developers have indicated their commitment to building DirectX 11 games initially on AMD’s DirectX 11 hardware, delivering superior performance and compatibility.

“AMD has a long track record of delivering pioneering features that have gone on to become mainstays in the DirectX experience, and we’re doing it again with two mature, AMD-developed technologies in DirectX 11 – tessellation and the compute shader – both of which enable a better DirectX 11 experience for consumers,” said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, AMD Products Group. “Today, we’re previewing AMD’s DirectX 11 graphics processor to build enthusiasm for this key technology so developers will have games available at launch and shortly thereafter. With the benefits it delivers to gaming, applications and Windows 7, developers are lining up to get their hands on our hardware, and we’re confident that consumers will too.”

Intel May Face Civil Charges Following $1.45 Billion Fine From European Union

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:48:33 +0000

Earlier this week, Intel Corporation was fined $1.45 billion by the European Union regarding competitive practices. The $1.45 billion fine imposed on Intel is a victory for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). AMD is a major competitor of Intel and was responsible for the investigation. This fine is the largest that has been imposed on a company, even beating out the fine imposed on Microsoft last year.

Intel gave computer manufacturing companies rebates to encourage them to not use AMD’s chips. Intel has denied those charges and vows to appeal the ruling made against them. However Intel competitors may take civil cases against them using the Commissions regulatory action as a reference for the lawsuits.

In Korea, Intel was issued a $25.4 million fine for abuse in their dominant position around 2008. Three years before that, Intel violated the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) anti-monopoly laws by forcing full exclusivity with five Japanese PC companies.

[via ComputerWorld UK]

AMD Marketshare Grows 4.6% In Q1

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:45:00 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is gaining on competitor Intel more and more. In Q1 2009, the overall U.S. microprocessor shipments dropped 10.9% from the quarter before. Overall Intel had a 77.3% market share and AMD had 22.3%. AMD gained 4.6% this quarter.

Even though shipments have slowed down, the rate of decline is expected to lessen.

“The PC processor market continued to reflect significant decline in end demand for most of 1Q09,” stated Shane Rau, a director at research firm IDC. “However, some inventory replenishment by (PC makers) at the end of the quarter helped to slow the decline and bring the quarter in at a level only slightly worse than typical seasonal decline.”

The Atom processor shipped about 33% less in this quarter compared to the previous quarter indicating that there was less of a demand for netbooks this time around.

[via CNET]