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AMD: Development of ‘Zen’ CPUs is our largest R&D spending now

Advanced Micro Devices has been slashing its research and development budgets for a number of quarters in a row now due to decreasing revenues. With limited R&D resources, AMD has to prioritize its spendings. According to chief executive officer of AMD, at present the company spends most of its R&D money on development of upcoming microprocessors based on “Zen” micro-architecture.

AMD spent $232 million on research and development in the first quarter of 2015 (or around 22 per cent of revenue), a 2 per cent increase compared to the previous quarter, but a 17 per cent decrease from the same period a year ago. AMD spends roughly 20 per cent of its revenue on R&D and cannot substantially increase its investments even when it needs to. In a bid to ensure that it can fund crucial projects, AMD cut its SG&A [sales general and administrative] expenses in Q1 2015 to $125 million, down 9 per cent sequentially and 20 per cent year-over-year.

For AMD, the key priority right now is development of high-performance microprocessors, said Lisa Su, chief exec of AMD, in a brief interview with Hardwareluxx web-site at Computex. In fact, high-performance “Zen” processors account for the largest portion of AMD’s R&D investments right now.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad

It should be noted that by now AMD has completed development of its “Zen” micro-architecture, engineers of the company are on the finish line with development of “Zen+” and designers of the company should be on the home straight with 2016 chip designs.

Based on AMD’s official roadmaps as well as unofficial information from sources with knowledge of the company’s plans, the chip designer intends to release four products based on “Zen” micro-architecture in 2016. AMD plans to launch new Opteron processors featuring eight, sixteen or even more “Zen” cores; a high-performance desktop chip code-named “Summit Ridge” with up to eight cores; a mainstream accelerated processing unit known as “Bristol Ridge” with four “Zen” cores as well as a low-power APU code-named “Basilisk” with two “Zen” cores inside.

All AMD’s new processors will be made using a FinFET manufacturing technology (presumably, using GlobalFoundries’ 14LPP fabrication process), which means giant spending on design. According to various industry experts, it costs three times more to design a chip with FinFET transistors than to design a chip with planar transistors. Design of a high-end FinFET system-on-chip can cost around $150 million, which is a giant sum for AMD. If the company wants to release two high-end and one mainstream FinFET models next year (note that Opteron uses the same dies as the next-gen FX), it needs $350 – $380 million just to design them. Making those chips material will add mask and tape-out costs.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_1

In a bid to ensure that “Zen”-based products are available next year, AMD had to make a number of tough decisions. The company postponed release of processors based on its ARMv8-compatible “K12” cores to 2017. Besides, AMD cancelled release of its 20nm system-on-chips – “Amur” and “Nolan” – that belonged to the “Skybridge” family of products.

“The past six or seven months have really given us times to re-look at the [planned] products and [determine] which of the products are going to return on investments because they give us strong market positions and which of the products are not,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer AMD at the company’s financial analyst day. “I the past I talked about 20nm node that we did some designs on. We have started some initial designs, we have run some silicon, but those parts are probably not going to go into production because we think we can get much more bang for the buck out of FinFET technologies going forward.”

The cancellation of “Amur” and “Nolan” means that AMD will not have anything new to offer for inexpensive tablets based on Microsoft Corp.’s upcoming Windows 10 this fall. The outdated “Mullins” system-on-chip will hardly be able to compete against the latest application processors from Intel and other chip designers. As a result, to fund development of “Zen” processors, AMD had to abandon certain short-term opportunities.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_2

It is still unclear when AMD plans to release its “Zen” processors. In fact, it is even unknown whether the company has taped out any of “Zen”-based chips.

Mass production of chips starts between nine and twelve months after the initial tape-out. Therefore, if AMD wants its first “Zen” processors to be inside 2016 BTS [back to school] PCs and servers (such machines hit the market in late July or early August), it needs to formally introduce them in mid-2016 and start high-volume production at least 1.5 – 2 months before that (production cycles for FinFET processes are about 90 days). If this is the case, AMD should have taped out the first “Zen”-based products several months ago. If the company plans to release its “Zen” chips in time for 2016 HR [holiday refresh] cycle, then it should tape them out in July '15 (at the latest) and formally introduce them in early fall 2016.

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KitGuru Says: It is good to see that AMD wants to get back into the game with high-performance offerings. Moreover, “Zen” micro-architecture looks very promising from many perspectives and AMD’s plans seem rather ambitious. Unfortunately, without any actual release schedules of AMD’s “Zen” and Intel’s “Cannonlake”, it is hard to make any credible predictions about AMD’s positions on the market of microprocessors next year.

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63 comments

  1. shame these won’t work in an AM3+ socket

  2. Will we ever get a new SOC to put in our present AM1 boards?

  3. Realy? I am happy to finally get a new motherboard with a new socket, new chipset that will have better features, like more USB 3.1 ports, SATA ports and DDR4.
    Geez us AMD users have been very lucky on how long we’ve managed to keep our existing boards and the good thing is that when ZEN comes out… the boards will last a long time again because its clear it wiill be a long time before they develop any new cpu’s or apus.

  4. Patrick Proctor

    No. The platform is dead. You can’t support legacy forever. That’s true of software and hardware.

  5. AM3+ did not last very long in comparison to historical AMD sockets. Just FX bulldozer and FX Vishera,,, In My opinion should rolled out FX Piledriver for AM3+.
    I would have done the upgrade to pile driver.
    Because they cut the AM3+ short and all their FM1/2 boards short we don’t really know how they will treat ZEN.

    Historicaly, I remember running a really powerful Dual Core Athlon X2 on DDR1 motherboard…. it allowed me to skip DDR2 mobo’s completely. I think those days are gone.

  6. FX 8350 is Piledriver.

  7. doloresmjackson

    ☯♫▲☑♋≈⚔89$/hour@mk1

    >/..

    http://www.GlobalworkTarget/ranking/homes/

  8. Last chance AMD…… Last chance. If this ZEN also fails the whole AMD fans should sink the company to bankrupt and make way for a takeover of AMD by some other bigger companies. Its pointless to continue like this……

  9. It’s not that I think it’s a bad thing all of the way that they’re pushing for all new hardware, but I’m partial to my current build and seems like I could have milked just a bit more out of it, like I never got that full performance that I wanted from it.

  10. Legacy. What legacy? Heh.

  11. Buy AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W FD8350FRHKBOX Desktop

    Pile Driver came after Vishera to the FM platform but not AM3+.

    The reason I know this is because I own a FX 8350. The FX 9000 series is also Vishera. I’ve been watching this stuff.

  12. Damn, they certainly have been forced to make cuts, but hopefully it pays off. Zen is the real big key to them regaining solid ground as a company, I really hope they pull it off

  13. Zambezi = Bulldozer

    Vishera = Piledriver

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_FX_microprocessors

    http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/57446-fx-8350-cpu-review-amds-vishera-arrives-2.html

    You’re confusing platform names with architecture names.

  14. If AMD die, can you imagine how much Intel will bump their prices being the only manufacturer of desktop CPU’s, even higher than they are now ? they are already ridiculous prices, we need AMD to keep Intel prices down a bit, and lets face it, Intel messed up big time with Haswell, so revised it, binned the good cores from the bad and still messed up with Haswell Refresh LMAO @ Intel.
    Every time Intel come out with a new CPU, you need a new board and new memory, possibly new hard drives and a new PSU to run it all, because we all have £1000 laying around for all that.
    AMD – change the CPU and your done.

  15. No you misunderstood me. What I said is that its pointless to continue like the way AMD is now going. There is no proper competition to Intel for years and AMD is weakening day by day. If AMD got bankrupt some other capable big companies like Samsung for example can take over AMD and start releasing highly competitive products again. Is that a bad idea ?? In 2016 if AMD’s all new releases fails, then its better the company go bankrupt and a takeover situation would be highly beneficial to the whole consumers. Both Intel and nVidia loves existence of always weak AMD and they get threatened if AMD gets takeover.

  16. He is an Intel troller.

  17. If there’s one “legacy-killer” It’s Intel not AMD lol.
    He needs to look at how long AM3+ has been alive and for how many architectures not process nodes and AM3 even supported AM3+ procs if they could supply enough current
    FM2 seen 2 architectures, only reason FM2+ doesn’t work with FM2 boards is because of PCIE 3.0

  18. yeah I know 🙂

  19. We need upgrades from PCI/e 2.0 and various other tech though. If it’s one thing nobody should be complaining about now is wanting to hold onto old AMD stuff. The tech is basically all 4-5 years old by now. The socket had small revisions for going from DDR2 to DDR3 it’s so old; we’re easing in DDR4 already.

  20. Well, there was one PCIE 3.0 board released from ASUSTeK

  21. Was there? That shouldn’t be possible, due to the fact that the CPU doesn’t have PCI/e 3.0 lanes O_O.

  22. It would be awesome to have CPU with RAM on chip like they will do with their GPU. 8 or 16GB would be a killer…

  23. ASUSTeK COMPUTER
    Sabertooth 990FX R2.0

  24. https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FXGEN3_R20/ That’s the product specs on it. The model has had 2 revisions, but has been around for about 2 years now. The only reason I don’t use it is I’m partial to MSI products and didn’t want to spend money on a new M/B. But, sadly, it is about the only 990 FX M/B that supported PCIE 3.0

  25. Only managed to do so thanks to an added-in PLX chip (which made it more expensive than the non-3.0 Sabertooth model). The problem with that arrangement was that the PLX chip offered 3.0 lanes to the PCI-E slots but still transferred that data to the CPU via the existing 2.0 lanes the CPU offered – so essentially it added in a “middleman” to simulate 3.0 lanes for the GPU, but there was no complimentary bandwidth boost because it still used 2.0 lanes.

  26. Yeah, Speely explained what I thought was the way they could have done that. It’s not beneficial that they had it.

  27. In fact it worked out to be a LOSS in performance – the PLX chip offered 32 lanes of 3.0 to two x16 slots, but connected them to the CPU via just 16 dedicated lanes of 2.0 – that itself was a bottleneck, but the PLX chip itself added additional latency to the whole thing.

    Basically, running GPUs on 2.0 native x16 slots was faster than having the 3.0 slots available in the first place.

    Asus discontinued that motherboard not very long after they released it.

  28. All I want is a zen apu with hbm ill pay what you want just make the dang thing

  29. The only problem here is that the x86 license is not transferable, which means if AMD merges or is bought out, they lose the right to make x86 CPUs.
    They will only be making graphic cards at that point.

  30. AMD will not die even if ZEN fails to beat intel.we all also need this company to see better prices from nvidia or intel.

  31. X86 is transferable. If AMD go bankrupt Intel is forced to licence its x86 to the new acquirer of AMD to avoid Intel being monopoly. What else Intel also uses various AMD IP’s on their CPUs too. AMD clarified this clause earlier at:

    http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-x86-license-agreement-with-intel-cannot-block-our-merger-or-acquisition/

  32. You can’t just say things and pass them off as fact you know.

    Intel CPUs tend to need a new motherboard every two chips cycles due to their tick tock philosophy, not as you say every time they release a new chip.

    When was the last time You had to use different memory with an Intel chip? Memory from a first gen I5(5 years ago) would still be fine on the current gen. Try getting the best out of a latter generation AMD CPU using 1333 Memory.

    The most hilarious thing you said however was that one might also need a new hard drive and PSU. WHAT? Just figured you throw that one in for good measure huh?

    AMD – change the CPU (same freekin’ CPU but rebranded) done! (and you have been).

    Believe it or not I’m typing this on a Phenom II, but my chair is not so high that my feet can’t touch the ground firmly.

  33. “Try getting the best out of a latter generation AMD CPU using 1333 Memory”
    Um…Not all AMD cpu’s are a APU. You can use the same RAM you used with a Phenom 2 that you can use with a FX.

  34. FX is a latter gen chip? 😛 But yeah you’re correct that was a bit of a generalisation on my part. Consider it withdrawn.

  35. Oh yes maybe you are right but they should have brought steamroller with Excavator. That is my argument. You could have figured out what I was saying in the beginning if you were smart enough. Could have just said… do you mean steamroller/Excavator… and then I would say YEP.

  36. Sorry I wasn’t smart enough for you. I won’t let that happen again. 🙂

  37. We are both as one could call us nerds. When I talk about these names most people just start to laugh at the ridiculousness of the names. I up-voted your comment. I couldnt stop laughing at your comment. I was one of those online people who couldn’t see their own mistake for a while. I could be lumped in with that guy in a forum was claiming that Nvidia Titan IQ was turning off AF filtering to get better benchmarks at default (as most benchmark sites use default settings). Then later he found out it was his mistake. He had turned of AF filtering by himself. But he was over the top… he thought he had 100% proof and was upset.

  38. AHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH…..AMD YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST!!!!!

  39. AHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH…..AMD YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST!!!!!

  40. Imagine how stupid you’re going to look with this ignorant comment forever immortalized on kitguru chat forums when the AMD Zen kicks ass and flies off the shelves.

  41. empty words… who cares for your jealuos and very stupid comment? last chance??? for what? why you stupid fanboys think that Intel better beacuse is abnormal expensive! noobs,this is NOT advantage! lower price is advantage. ratio of price and perfomance is very shameful for Intel!!! AMD give the same or even better perfomance for min. 3 times less money!!! Intel CPU of ex. 1000$, give (like I say) the same or lower perfomance than AMD CPU witch cost 3 times less. PERFOMANCE PER DOLLAR, nobody can find any Intel CPU witch have ratio even 50:50 in perfomance and price. Intel ratio is 80:20!!! 80 price-20 perfomance. disgracefully… but,why is that??? Beacuse Intel is aware that AMD overrides TODAY… in 2016. Intel is done..in 2017. total AMD superiority. That is fact,you can say what you what,look on Google about this. yours words does not mean anything… wait,we will see 😉

  42. why you stupid fanboys think that Intel better beacuse is abnormal expensive! noobs,this is NOT advantage! lower price is advantage. ratio of price and perfomance is very shameful for Intel!!! AMD give the same or even better perfomance for min. 3 times less money!!! Intel CPU of ex. 1000$, give (like I say) the same or lower perfomance than AMD CPU witch cost 3 times less. PERFOMANCE PER DOLLAR, nobody can find any Intel CPU witch have ratio even 50:50 in perfomance and price. Intel ratio is 80:20!!! 80 price-20 perfomance. disgracefully… but,why is that??? Beacuse Intel is aware that AMD overrides TODAY… in 2016. Intel is done..in 2017. total AMD superiority. That is fact,you can say what you what,look on Google about this. yours words does not mean anything… wait,we will see 😉

  43. Intel=Titanic AMD=iceberg

  44. let’s hope

  45. Unfortunately for the good ol’ FX 8350 the performance gap between them and the i5’s has grown more than the price gap. i5’s are now the sweet spot for price/performance. But in reality unless you are running multiple cards AMD or Intel either will run any game unless its a BS console port like GTA4 COD, Skyrim then Higher IPC’s per core will always with over high multithread capabilities.

  46. Don’t know that there is much point unless you are looking for a sub 500buck gaming rig with no dedicated GPU. Although DX 12 is supposed to take advantage of built in GPU’s as well as dedicated and from different vendors.

  47. The i7 is pretty much 40% stronger in IPC than the FX 8350 given the later APU’s are actually stronger IPC’s than the 8350 just don’t have the high clock speeds or high core count. (8350 vs i7 http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-4770K-vs-AMD-FX-8350)
    FX4300 vs A10 7850 here http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-4300-vs-AMD-A10-7850K

    The other thing to notice is the 50 something % in power consumption. AMD Haven’t been twiddling their thumbs.
    40% IPC increase will make an 8 Core as strong as a i7 4770k in single thread and hopefully as strong in multithread. Bare in mind this is the 1st time we’ll see SMT from AMD. Don’t get too many hopes up. I am however looking forward to upgrading my Server (FX 8350) and my gaming rig (i7 2600) finally

  48. OLD AMD FX-8370 VS NEW Intel Core i7 5960X!!! :))) WTF??? 😀
    http://goo.gl/Sa2ygl

    AMD vs Intel – Our 8-Core CPU Gaming Performance Showdown! | Technology X
    As a gamer and hardware enthusiast that spends a lot of time in various PC gaming communities, one of the longest on-going debates has been the best…
    TECHNOLOGYX.COM|BY DONNY STANLEY

  49. please,look this.. the official investigation in history!!!
    OLD AMD FX-8370 VS NEW Intel Core i7 5960X
    http://goo.gl/Sa2ygl

    AMD vs Intel – Our 8-Core CPU Gaming Performance Showdown! | Technology X
    As a gamer and hardware enthusiast that spends a lot of time in various PC gaming communities, one of the longest on-going debates has been the best…
    TECHNOLOGYX.COM|BY DONNY STANLEY

  50. OLD AMD FX-8370 VS NEW Intel Core i7 5960X!!! :))) WTF??? 😀
    http://goo.gl/Sa2ygl

    AMD vs Intel – Our 8-Core CPU Gaming Performance Showdown! | Technology X
    As a gamer and hardware enthusiast that spends a lot of time in various PC gaming communities, one of the longest on-going debates has been the best…
    TECHNOLOGYX.COM|BY DONNY STANLEY

  51. I love these comparisons. They show absolutely nothing except that most big title games don’t need massive CPU’s. It does not fairly portray intel CPU’s though. Where are the standard i7’s or the i5’s or even the i3’s. It is a bias review tailor made to make you believe that you will get a similar gaming experience when comparing a $200 CPU to a $1500 CPU which is the case if you only intend on running a single titan or R9 290/390 or Fury’s. Not only that the benchies are also handpicked to show the FX’s strong points. It is easy to show little difference in the CPU’s when it isn’t the CPU that is the bottleneck. What they should be comparing it too is the i5 4670k which is in the same sort of price bracket give or take $50 which most games beats the AMD in almost everything especially games that can’t take advantage of AMD’s extra cores. Price/Performance king I think still is the i5. Like I said that benchmark doesn’t say shit except don’t spend $1500 on a CPU for gaming. Unless you are going to run like 3x titans then why not you obviously don’t care about money…… Because you bought 3x titans.

  52. your opinion is totally irrelevant… This is important! All of the evidence and the facts are there… and it is officially 🙂 so,nobody cares for your opinion and jealousy. Blind fanboy….

  53. Lol fuck wit I run AMD hardware. Have done for years. I have 2 PC’s. One is the FX 8350 overclocked to 4.6Ghz 16GB RAM and a R9 290. The other is a i7 2600 16GB and the same R9 290. Guess which one is faster especially in the older games. There is not a game on the market that I play where the i7 is beaten. The only blind one here is you. Like I said the Benchmarks only show that there is almost no point in running a $1500 processor. Everyone knows that. The only time you need it is when a cheapie wont send GFX data to the GPU’s fast enough. Let me clarify this for you since you obviously have no idea how to design a system. A faster CPU will only make things faster if the lower spec CPU is the bottleneck if it is not the bottleneck then guess what, you can chuck a dual socket Xeon with 16 cores in each and you will hardly see a difference. What I also said is that these titles are cherry picked. Why did we not see Skyrim in there or other titles that were CPU dependant. My nephew’s 1st dual core (with HT) i5 runs Skyrim better and the 8350 does with the same GFX card. I also pointed out why they used the most expensive CPU from Intel in an industry where CPU performance is really relevant provided you are running more than an i3. Why did they not compare with an equivalent i5. The benchmarks for these systems would be about the same as the $1500 i7. FPS still be higher than AMD in more titles at roughly the same price. My opinion is relevant as it is the one that is correct. You are not. The argument is for the best price/performance CPU is still the i5 as it provides the best performance over a greater range of games and applications. It is basically the same price as the 8350/8370 provide 40% faster single thread performance 3% slower Multithread while only having a 84w TDP making it use little power and very easy to cool. Just because AMD can keep up in a few games does not mean it wins. i5 has been a better chip for the last few generations. Very rarely does it get beaten by the AMD chips. The chips are comparable but the i5 is a better chip as it provides much more consistent performance over a larger range of titles. Suck it up princess your the fanboy. Try exposing yourself to different systems for once. You might actually learn something. Its obvious you don’t know shit.

  54. your opinion is totally irrelevant

  55. your opinion is totally irrelevant…

  56. YEAH,YOU KNOW BETTER THAN EXPERTS!!! NOOB,THIS IS OFFICIAL!!! This is the largest study in history!!!!!!!!!!!

  57. Sorry but i have been working in the IT industry for years specialising in pc hardware and network infrastructure. Been custom building pc’s for all purposes and fields for about 15 years. I know AMDs strengths and weaknesses you obviosly dont. The re was a time I’d recommend the fx chip over i5s but that has now passed. All you are is a pathetic little cunt fanboy who is holding onto remnants of a dead platform. the only reason AMD is continuing the fx chips is because people still have AM3 boards and they want them to upgrade. And they should unless they have phenom x6. Find me more comparisons between i5 and fx chips and that show better price performance than intel and i may believe you until you can back it up stop being a whining little bitch. Its fucktards like you that kills the pc market.

  58. at least mine is right

  59. at least mine is right!

  60. In those games, the fx would have almost the same performance as a much cheaper intel/amd cpu. Also, i7 5960x is too strong to be used just for gaming. Make that i7 render many videos and stream and upload and compare it with the fx in the same scenario. That i7 will win. The best gaming pc price/performance you could get is either an i5 4460 or a fx 6300. You pretty much don’t need cpu’s powerful than that. Unless you are streaming and even so those are still solid cpus for game+streaming.

  61. I’m afraid the only blind fanboy is you. Triple A title games don’t need a 1000$ cpu. You are plain stupid if you buy i7 5960x for gaming or a FX 9590 for gaming. The i5 is enough and it is the best price/performance. The best price/performance on AMD side is fx 6300.

  62. You’re wrong man.

  63. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

    In the absence of an explanation I can only assume you just made a gut reaction.