baffin | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 30 Sep 2015 02:06:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png baffin | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 AMD’s talks with private equity firm Silver Lake stalled – report https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-talks-with-private-equity-firm-silver-lake-stalled-report/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-talks-with-private-equity-firm-silver-lake-stalled-report/#respond Tue, 29 Sep 2015 20:23:38 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=269944 The discussions between Advanced Micro Devices and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners have stalled because the two companies have failed to agree on the price and the future of AMD. The chip designer is reportedly considering other options. Silver Lake was interested to acquire a 25 per cent stake in AMD, reports Bloomberg news-agency. …

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The discussions between Advanced Micro Devices and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners have stalled because the two companies have failed to agree on the price and the future of AMD. The chip designer is reportedly considering other options.

Silver Lake was interested to acquire a 25 per cent stake in AMD, reports Bloomberg news-agency. Representatives for the two companies met over the summer, but did not reach any agreement. The talks stalled after the parties failed to agree on a price and strategy, according to people familiar with the matter.

AMD’s current market capitalization is around $1.3 billion, hence, 25 per cent of the company’s stock would cost around $325 million, if acquired on the open market. However, $325 million may be less than AMD needs to fund development of products in 2016 and 2017. In today’s realities, this is $100 million more than AMD spends on research and development per quarter, or design cost of two complex system-on-chips made using a FinFET process technology.

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AMD has been losing market share to Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. for several years now. The company hopes that its upcoming microprocessors – code-named “Summit Ridge” and “Raven Ridge” based on the “Zen” micro-architecture will help it to regain share from Intel. In addition, the company readies code-named “Greenland”, “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” graphics processing units powered by the next iteration of AMD’s GCN architecture, which should help it to become more competitive against Nvidia.

Silver Lake is a major private equity firm, which invests in high-tech companies and sells its stake afterwards. Silver Lake has rather strict requirements for companies it invests in. For example, it can demand changing strategic goals or business approaches. Silver Lake has invested in such giants as Dell, Seagate, Avago and Alibaba.

AMD and Silver Lake did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Silver Lake hardly ever makes large acquisitions without partners. For example, Silver Lake teamed up with Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to acquire 65 per cent of Skype in 2009. In a bid to buy out Dell several years ago, Silver Lake collaborated with Microsoft, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Bank of America and Royal Bank of Canada. If Silver Lake is interested in making an investment in AMD, it may well have a potential partner.

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Major technology investment firm may get significant stake in AMD https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/major-technology-investment-company-may-acquire-significant-stake-in-amd/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/major-technology-investment-company-may-acquire-significant-stake-in-amd/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2015 22:59:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=267292 Silver Lake, a leading private equity firm, is reportedly planning to acquire a significant stake in Advanced Micro Devices. Details of the deal are unclear, but it makes a lot of sense for private equity companies to buy AMD, whose stock is trading at nearly its 12-months low. Silver Lake plans to acquire 20 per …

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Silver Lake, a leading private equity firm, is reportedly planning to acquire a significant stake in Advanced Micro Devices. Details of the deal are unclear, but it makes a lot of sense for private equity companies to buy AMD, whose stock is trading at nearly its 12-months low.

Silver Lake plans to acquire 20 per cent stake in Advanced Micro Devices, which will make it the largest shareholder of the company, reports Fudzilla, which cites multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. AMD’s current market capitalization is about $1.43 billion, which means that Silver Lake will not have to pay a lot for such a high stake in AMD. However, it will not be easy to get 20 per cent of the world’s second supplier of x86 microprocessors.

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At present around 60 per cent of AMD’s stock is owned by various investment funds. Mubadala Development Company holds 18.2 per cent stake in AMD and is currently the largest shareholder of the company. Around 18.9 per cent of AMD’s stock is owned by the company and its insiders. Less than 20 per cent of AMD’s shares are not owned by the company, its insiders or top institutional holders.

If Silver Lake wants to get a 20 per cent stake, it will either need to purchase shares from AMD, its insiders, major institutional investors and/or in the open market. Alternatively, AMD will need to issue additional shares that will be bought by Silver Lake. In any case, the purchase will mean a major change in AMD’s ownership structure.

The troubled chipmaker needs cash in a bid to fund its crucial products that will be released in 2016 and 2017. Since design of processors made using FinFET process technologies is very expensive – around $150 million for a complex chip without the costs of photomasks and other things needed to start mass production – AMD does need additional money. Apparently, Silver Lake may just help to make AMD competitive again.

AMD hopes the products it releases in 2016 and 2017 – “Summit Ridge” and “Raven Ridge” microprocessors based on “Zen” and “K12” micro-architectures as well as code-named “Greenland”, “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” graphics processing units powered by the next iteration of GCN architecture – will be significantly more competitive than the chips AMD has today.

Silver Lake is a major private equity firm, which invests in high-tech companies. Silver Lake has invested in such giants as Dell, Seagate, Avago and Alibaba.

AMD and Silver Lake did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If AMD manages to secure additional finances and speed up development and production of next-gen products, this will be definitely good for the whole market. Unfortunately, we have no idea what really is going on and where Silver Lake plans to acquire its 20 per cent stake.

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AMD readies three new GPUs: Greenland, Baffin and Ellesmere https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-readies-three-new-gpus-for-2016-greenland-baffin-and-ellesmere/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-readies-three-new-gpus-for-2016-greenland-baffin-and-ellesmere/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2015 21:27:02 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=264345 In the recent years, Advanced Micro Devices has reduced the amount of new graphics processors it releases per annum, which lead to massive erosion of its market share and revenue. While the company hopes that its latest product lineup will help it to regain some of the lost share and improve earnings, the firm pins …

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In the recent years, Advanced Micro Devices has reduced the amount of new graphics processors it releases per annum, which lead to massive erosion of its market share and revenue. While the company hopes that its latest product lineup will help it to regain some of the lost share and improve earnings, the firm pins considerably more hopes on an all-new family of products that will be released in 2016.

AMD’s code-named “Arctic Islands” family of products will include three brand-new chips – “Greenland”, “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” – a source with knowledge of AMD plans said. The “Greenland” will be the new flagship offering for performance enthusiasts, whereas the “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” will target other market segments, such as high-end and mainstream. It is unclear whether the “Arctic Islands” family will take in any existing products, but it is possible that AMD may address certain markets with previous-gen products.

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“Greenland” will be AMD’s first graphics processing unit based on the all-new micro-architecture, which development began a little more than two years ago. While the architecture is currently known as another iteration of GCN, the new ISA [instruction set architecture] will be so considerably different compared to the existing GCN that it has every right to be called “post-GCN”, the source said. It is likely that the “Greenland” will retain layout of the contemporary AMD Radeon graphics processing units, but there will be significant changes in on the deeper level.

The only official thing currently known about the new architecture, which Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, calls the next iteration of GCN, is that it is projected to be two times more energy efficient compared to the current GCN. Essentially, this means means major performance enhancements on the ISA level. Thanks to the fact that the “Greenland” graphics processing unit will be made using either 14nm or 16nm FinFET process technology, expect it to feature considerably larger number of stream processors than “Fiji”.

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The “Greenland” graphics processor will rely on the second-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM), so expect ultra-high-end graphics cards and professional solutions with up to 32GB of DRAM onboard with bandwidth of up to 1TB/s. Consumer-class “Greenland”-based products will likely come with 8GB – 16GB of memory. Due to usage of HBM, expect the “Greenland” chip and upcoming graphics cards on its base to resemble the currently available AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series adapters.

The number of transistors inside the “Greenland” as well as its die size are unknown. Since 14nm/16nm FinFET manufacturing technologies have considerably (up to 90 per cent) higher transistor density than contemporary TSMC’s 28nm fabrication process, it is logical to expect that the new flagship product will feature 15 – 18 billion of elements if it retains around 600mm² die size from the “Fiji”.

It is believed that AMD has already taped-out its “Greenland” graphics processing unit and is about to get the first silicon in the coming weeks.

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Not a lot of information is known about the “Baffin” and the “Ellesmere”. The source stressed that both GPUs are brand-new and will be designed from scratch. Since the “Baffin” and the “Ellesmere” are named after bigger and smaller islands in Canada, it is likely that the former is a mainstream graphics chip with moderate die size, whereas the former is a small entry-level GPU. AMD began to work on “Ellesmere” about a year ago.

Expect AMD to begin talking about its next-generation graphics architecture in the coming months.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: As it traditionally happens, everything looks very good on paper. If AMD manages to release three brand new chips within a reasonable amount of time in 2016 and the chips will be competitive against Nvidia’s, then it has all the chances to win back market share. However, one should keep in mind that the “next GCN” or the “post-GCN” will not compete against Nvidia’s “Maxwell”, but will have to compete against Nvidia’s “Pascal”, which promises to be very powerful. As a result, expect 2016 is going to be an interesting year for the GPUs…

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