The semiconductor business known as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is well-known for its work in the design and development of computer processors and graphics technologies. The corporation was established in 1969 and has its headquarters in Santa Clara, California. However, a large portion of its business is conducted in Austin, Texas.
In the beginning, AMD didn’t manufacture its own goods; rather, it improved the performance of microprocessors and other items that were already on the market by making necessary modifications. AMD has become one of the leading suppliers of central processing unit (CPU) technology for desktop computers and servers, as well as GPU graphics technology, high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) processors, field programmable gate array (FPGA) processors, and network accelerators. This success was achieved through a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions.
Intel Corporation is the most significant rival for AMD. Both of these businesses were launched by former employees of another company formerly known as Fairchild Semiconductor.
According to AMD’s projections, the company’s sales will reach around $26 billion in 2022.
In 1982, Advanced Micro Devices engaged into a technical cross-licensing arrangement with Intel. This agreement allowed AMD to offer second-source chips to Intel. Intel, in turn, supplied microprocessors to IBM for the company’s new line of personal computers aimed at consumers. This arrangement ended in 1982. In 1991, Intel and AMD engaged in a court battle over AMD’s Am386 microprocessor, which Intel argued was too close to Intel’s own 386 CPU. AMD argued that its product was unique. In 1994, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling that was favourable to AMD. In the same year, Compaq entered into a contract with AMD to have the latter serve as its only supplier of computer chips.
Another microprocessor business, NextGen, was purchased by AMD in the year 1996. Because of this, the business was able to maintain its competitive edge and transition away from primarily developing chips that were compatible with Intel.
In the year 2000, AMD introduced its Athlon CPU, which at the time was the industry’s first microprocessor with a clock speed of 1 gigahertz (GHz).
In 2003, AMD launched their Opteron processor, which was designed specifically for installation in computer servers. As a consequence of this, the option of consolidating server resources emerged; this was the initial step taken before the introduction of virtualization in the cloud.
The firm entered the market of high-performance personal computers used for gaming when it made the announcement in 2006 that it would be purchasing ATI Technologies for $5.4 billion. ATI Technologies was a manufacturer of visual graphics cards for personal computers.
In 2008, AMD started the process of splitting its manufacturing and design businesses into two distinct entities. Its manufacturing operations were sold to GlobalFoundries, Inc. as part of a multibillion-dollar transaction involving Advanced Technology Investment Company, which is now known as Mubadala and is a holding company that is state-owned and situated in Abu Dhabi. Because of this, AMD’s manufacturing arm was able to become fabless, which meant that the fabrication of the company’s chips would be contracted out to a third-party manufacturer.
The global crisis began in 2008 and lasted until roughly 2014, during which time the company went through many big layoff periods and three successive chief executive officers. AMD underwent a corporate restructuring in 2014 that resulted in the company being split into two distinct business groups: computing and graphics, and enterprise, embedded, and semi-custom. The computing and graphics group primarily works on personal computer processors and graphics processing units (GPUs). The enterprise, embedded, and semi-custom markets concentrate on the production of highly specialised processors, such as those used in servers and embedded devices, as well as gaming console technology and semi-custom system-on-chips (SoCs).
In February of 2022, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) paid an estimated $50 billion to purchase Xilinx, a technology and semiconductor business.
The following is a list of popular products manufactured by AMD:
Ryzen is the name of AMD’s line of processors for desktop computers and laptops. They are offered with anywhere from 4 all the way up to 64 cores to choose from. Ryzen processors have gained a lot of popularity recently, particularly among gamers, because to their superior performance.
AMD’s server processor is known as Epyc. It is a strong rival with Intel’s Xeon CPU because it contains 64 cores, whereas the Xeon processor can only have a maximum of 28 cores. Therefore, a server with one socket of Epyc’s 64 cores can deliver greater processing power than a server with two sockets of Xeon’s 56 total cores combined.
Radeon is the name of the GPU company owned by AMD. Nvidia is the most significant rival the company faces in the GPU market.
Instinct is AMD’s High-Performance Coprocessor (HPC). Radeon technology serves as the foundation for Instinct, which is designed specifically with the data centre and high-end computing in mind.
FPGA: As a result of AMD’s purchase of Xilinx, the company now possesses a whole product range of FPGA processors. FPGAs have become more common in computing applications in which a straightforward job must be carried out repeatedly at a breakneck pace. The functionality of FPGAs can also be altered through the use of reprogramming. Xilinx bequeathed AMD three product lines: the Virtex (for high-end products), the Kintex (for mid-range products), and the Artix (low-end).
As this article is being written, AMD is in the midst of entering the data processing unit (DPU) industry with the impending acquisition (May 2022) of Pensando. Its chips are utilised in SmartNICs, which are network interface controllers that use intelligent network packet routing to free the CPU from the burden of doing the task.
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