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Customers’ needs drive innovation

The technology needs of its customers have shaped AMD’s strategic vision. By Vinita Gupta

We live in a world where increasingly sophisticated consumer devices are delivering connectivity, information, and entertainment, anywhere, anytime, any place. Where computing power for media and graphics continues to escalate on thin clients that deliver accessibility at home, in the office, and in your hand.

The last five years have witnessed AMD become an integral part of the technology landscape in the country, from being the first to introduce 64-bit computing, to being the front-runner in dual-core technologies, with a strong presence in every possible market segment.

Vamsi Krishna, Senior Manager (Technical), AMD India, stated, “Technological innovation is indeed important for economic growth and the enhancement of human possibilities. In the last two decades, the information technology sector has been responsible for more economic activity, wealth creation, productivity and worldwide economic growth than any other sector in the economy. Economies, consumers, businesses and governments reap the benefits of technological innovations.”

R&D centres

AMD’s Indian centers are the largest for the company outside the US. The company has been increasing its investments significantly in R&D ever since 2004 when it first started its engineering operations in the country. AMD’s four development centers in India stand testimony to the confidence that the company has in Indian talent.

Krishna said, “Our market strategy in India mirrors our global strategy to provide best-of-class, customer-centric solutions that exceed the needs of commercial and consumer-end users alike.”

The R&D operations in Hyderabad and Bangalore form an integral part of the company’s global development teams. Bangalore has been instrumental in AMD’s core silicon design. The two technology intensive centers in Bangalore are specifically targeted towards the development of AMD’s microprocessors.

AMD India Engineering Center (IEC) has an advanced VLSI (very large scale integration) design center and a software solutions group focusing on system software development, AMD performance libraries, strategic alliances and developer outreach. This center plays a critical role in driving the roadmap for next generation processors and has contributed tremendously to the 45nm server processors codenamed ‘Shanghai’.

The two centers at Hyderabad drive the graphics and consumer electronics technology development for AMD and are responsible for a wide range of products that are currently part of the AMD portfolio. The R&D team here is strategically involved in microprocessors, embedded systems software for consumer electronics and VLSI among other areas.

These centers focus predominantly on the consumer handheld, digital TV and mobile TV domain. The center includes AMD’s Center of Excellence for Audio Technology and has designed multimedia products for leading companies in consumer electronics, including mobile phones, game consoles, LCD panels and TV tuner cards.

Fusion: Accelerating innovation

With the launch of Windows Vista, robust 3D graphics, digital media and device convergence are driving the need for greater performance, graphics capabilities, and battery life. In this increasingly diverse x86 computing environment, simply adding more CPU cores to a baseline architecture will not be enough. As x86 scales from palmtops to petaFLOPS, modular processor designs leveraging both CPU and GPU compute capabilities will be essential in meeting the requirements of computing in 2008 and beyond.

With ATI’s prowess in graphics, chipsets and consumer electronics and AMD’s in microprocessors, AMD plans to create a new class of x86 processor that integrates the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) at the silicon level with a broad set of design initiatives collectively codenamed “Fusion.”

The Fusion project defines a unified architecture for the integration of CPU and GPU that fully leverages the multi-core concept and Direct Connect architecture, enables a homogeneous programming model for all AMD products, and standardizes the coprocessor interface for on-die and platform connectivity. Based on the philosophy of customer-centric innovation, it truly leverages on the competencies for AMD and ATI to deliver to the customers a coherent, fully scalable, product offering.

“AMD-powered Fusion platforms will continue to fully support high-end discrete graphics, physics accelerators, and other PCI Express-based solutions to meet the ever-increasing needs of the most demanding enthusiast end-users,” said Krishna.

Accelerated processing units

Going forward, Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) may be the order of the day. It is a mix-and-match strategy at the level of the processor die involving an array of heterogeneous multicore parts that fit different workloads. A “quad-core” processor might have two general-purpose cores and two specialized processor cores (e.g., a stream processor and a Java + XML coprocessor), one general-purpose core and three specialized cores, and so on.

“These specialized computing cores are referred as APUs, and an array of such application-specific, modularly designed cores can be developed that can be dropped onto a die and fabbed with minimal cost,” said Krishna.

He further added that these dedicated cores can be customized on user’s specification and are capable of integrating everything the end-user may desire: cores that take care of the game physics, of the video/audio encoding and decoding or any other use.

In addition to modular processor cores that can be mixed and matched to suit different application types, other parts of the processor can be made modular, as well. Specifically, the processor will host one or more HyperTransport modules and other I/O interfaces, a memory controller, different levels and amounts of cache, and so on.

45nm technology

AMD announced initial 45nm “Shanghai” and “Deneb” Quad-Core processors are running server and client operating systems, respectively, in development systems at AMD. The milestone was noted as momentum builds toward delivery of first AMD 45nm products to customers later this year. At the heart of the process are a combination of technologies, such as immersion lithography and AMD’s 4th generation of strained-silicon.

Key innovations within AMD’s 45nm process are scheduled to include the following:

Immersion Lithography: Through the IBM partnership, AMD has developed a stable, highly-productive, immersion lithography process which achieves a 40% gain in resolution over conventional lithography while maintaining yields consistent with conventional lithography. Immersion tools are online and running wafers using AMD’s 45nm technology. AMD’s analysis shows that immersion lithography is a more efficient, cost-effective approach than the double-mask, double-etch lithography method used by our competition.

Fourth-generation Strained Silicon: AMD’s first 45nm product features transistors using AMD’s fourth generation of strained silicon technology, utilizing Silicon Germanium, Dual-Stress Liner and advanced Strain Memorization techniques for increased switching speed and power-efficiency.

Ultra-low-k Dielectrics: In some later 45nm products, AMD plans on using ultralow-k dielectrics to reduce wire delays by as much as 15 percent and enable greater overall processor performance.

High-k/metal Gates: As part of AMD’s Continuous Transistor Improvement (CTI) approach, AMD has the option to introduce high-k/metal gates into 45nm production to further enhance transistor performance. The “gate first” approach, developed with IBM, is designed to provide a simpler, less time consuming way to migrate to high-k metal gate technology and secure benefits that include improved performance and reduced power consumption.

vinita.gupta@expressindia.com