AMD Carrizo Pre-release thread

[jpiniero]

Oh, Carrizo isn't going to do well. That's pretty much confirmed. The consumer laptop market is so dominated by Bay Trail right now that I'm not sure what AMD can do really to fight the subsidies.

That doesn't mean that Carrizo isn't intriguing from a technical perspective or have it's place.

 

[Abwx]

Didn't take long for the nay Sayers to annoyingly butt in, although it isn't unexpected.

Product is very innovative and that doesnt please the usual supects, indeed you can read that there s no comments from some people about the slides datas, and it s not by chance...

The consumer laptop market is so dominated by Bay Trail right now that I'm not sure what AMD can do really to fight the subsidies.

Compete in segments where intel cant make contra revenues without reducing noticeably their profitability, that s the whole point of Carrizo.

 

[Idontcare]

Wow, had to happen. Product isnt even out yet and excuses are starting to pile up, just in case it doesnt do well.

CEO replaced, multiple SVP's heads rolled, Carrizo rollout scaled back to limited platforms.

The product isn't out but AMD has certainly recognized the problem(s) - Read, Byrne, LaForce, Naik...

Plenty of red flags indicating how well the product is expected to do by the very people entrusted with authority to make decisions for AMD's shareholders best interests (the very people who have the product in their hands now and are internally testing/validating the chip).

 

[Vesku]

CEO replaced, multiple SVP's heads rolled, Carrizo rollout scaled back to limited platforms.

The product isn't out but AMD has certainly recognized the problem(s) - Read, Byrne, LaForce, Naik...

Plenty of red flags indicating how well the product is expected to do by the very people entrusted with authority to make decisions for AMD's shareholders best interests (the very people who have the product in their hands now and are internally testing/validating the chip).

Doesn't necessarily mean the product is bad. Could very well be that the reason the heads rolled is because it's a decent product yet they still couldn't get any OEM buy in. That was supposed to be one of Read's skill areas given his position at Lenovo. Assuming Carrizo had anything to do with it this is a design which still mainly originated from previous management.

It's tougher to explain away poor sales if the product is not obviously terrible.

 

[Phynaz]

Reason/s ??

1. History
2. Doubling of efficiency in one revision? Unheard of.
3. It's AMD. They have no credibility in the CPU market.

 

[Phynaz]

Doesn't necessarily mean the product is bad. Could very well be that the reason the heads rolled is because it's a decent product yet they still couldn't get any OEM buy in. That was supposed to be one of Read's skill areas given his position at Lenovo. Assuming Carrizo had anything to do with it this is a design which still mainly originated from previous management.

It's tougher to explain away poor sales if the product is not obviously terrible.

AMD has a history of heads rolling right before a flop of a product is released.

 

[Phynaz]

A bunch of cherry picked remarks and an underperforming product. I guess we'll soon re-edit that quote of yours about AMD overpromising and underperforming.

I have no idea how some people have convinced themselves that what amounts to a core revision is going to be so revolutionary. Some people live in an AMD fantasy world.

 

[Abwx]

1. History
2. Doubling of efficiency in one revision? Unheard of.
3. It's AMD. They have no credibility in the CPU market.

1. Seems that product like P4 are not part of history in your limited book.

2. Process has been changed, not only the design.

3. All X86 CPUS use AMD64 to run W7/8 , including yours.

The real innovator in the CPU market is AMD, Intel is just a very competitive foundry that live on a legacy market that they didnt even create, all the credit is due to IBM, intel would had been unable to enter the personal computer market valuably without this firm since the competing uarchs were largely as good and often much better than Intel s 8086 and its derivatives.

 

[mrmt]

I have no idea how some people have convinced themselves that what amounts to a core revision is going to be so revolutionary. Some people live in an AMD fantasy world.

Yeah, especially when a very significant part of the executive team was rounded up recently. Every single signal coming from AMD points to Carrizo being another bust, and that will be thoroughly reflected in their financials.

 

[metalliax]

Yeah, especially when a very significant part of the executive team was rounded up recently. Every single signal coming from AMD points to Carrizo being another bust, and that will be thoroughly reflected in their financials.

More likely everything that has occurred from a marketing and sales strategy has seemed to be a bust over the past 36 months. It isn't necessarily about product, but moreso how product has been marketed / delivered to the world that has been a complete bust. I would wait a few months to see what AMD turns out before passing judgement on the decisions they made regarding management.

 

[NTMBK]

CEO replaced, multiple SVP's heads rolled, Carrizo rollout scaled back to limited platforms.

The product isn't out but AMD has certainly recognized the problem(s) - Read, Byrne, LaForce, Naik...

Plenty of red flags indicating how well the product is expected to do by the very people entrusted with authority to make decisions for AMD's shareholders best interests (the very people who have the product in their hands now and are internally testing/validating the chip).

I suspect it may be Seattle (and the whole ARM server business) which is throwing up red flags, and leading to the C-level cull. "Ambidextrous" was Rory's baby and Seattle was meant to be out 6 months ago, but it has sunk without a trace.

 

[Idontcare]

I suspect it may be Seattle (and the whole ARM server business) which is throwing up red flags, and leading to the C-level cull. "Ambidextrous" was Rory's baby and Seattle was meant to be out 6 months ago, but it has sunk without a trace.

That alone would be enough to possibly explain Rory's departure. But Byrne? Literally days after he got done talking up the PR junkets about how great Carrizo would be?

I'm just approaching this wrt the thread topic, Carrizo, and Byrne getting let go along with so many other execs really can only mean one thing when you factor in the timing of everything.

(that said, when is BW-K finally going to launch? yeesh at this glacial pace it is going to seem like Intel was targeting back-to-school 2015 all along)

 

[DrMrLordX]

I understand what you mean now, thing is that you wrote that voltage scaling was not as good in a separate paragraph, as such it could has been understood as being a statement that would hold for the whole TDP range.

Given the advertised TDP range of Carrizo on FP4 BGA (10-35W), it should be a good deal more efficient than Kaveri in that same TDP range, which will be great for notebook buyers as well as premium AiO buyers ($500-$550+ range). That is, assuming AMD can convince many OEMs to offer their chips in reasonably priced and equipped units.

AMD should seriously think about releasing either an AM1 version or an updated dual channel such plateform, given the MBs inherent lowish prices they could ask a nice premium for such an APU and still be very competitive for the APU + MB combo.

The main reason I agree with you here is that AMD already incurs the expense of maintaining SKUs for the AM1 line. They could EoL current products and bring in Carrizo/Carrizo-L. The absence of dual-channel RAM on AM1 is sort of a bummer, so I suspect Carrizo would be wasted on the platform.

EoLing the entire AM1 platform and replacing it with an update to accomodate dual-channel memory would be . . . more expensive, I think, and a risky maneuver considering AM1's apparent low volume.

Still, if AMD wants to fight against Intel's NUCs/UCFF units, then AM1 (or a hypothetical successor) is about the only platform they have right now equipped for that battle. Unless they start selling FP4 BGA units in that space, too . . .

CEO replaced, multiple SVP's heads rolled, Carrizo rollout scaled back to limited platforms.

The product isn't out but AMD has certainly recognized the problem(s) - Read, Byrne, LaForce, Naik...

Plenty of red flags indicating how well the product is expected to do by the very people entrusted with authority to make decisions for AMD's shareholders best interests (the very people who have the product in their hands now and are internally testing/validating the chip).

I'm not sure that Carrizo is to blame here. Everything is being scaled back except production of existing product lines. AMD appears to be taking a very conservative stance leading up to the Zen release. If anything, I would least suspect Carrizo of the Rory upheaval, since AMD is still (somewhat) willing to discuss its release in public. Mention of products like Nolan and Amur - particularly Amur - is scarce.

From the looks of the slides, AMD's decision to pull Carrizo from FM2+ seems more indicative of a genuine technical limitation of the design than anything else. Carrizo is being sold on efficiency which apparently doesn't translate to desktop-level TDPs.

As much as I like Kaveri, I suspect that Kaveri is more likely to blame for Rory & Friends getting canned than Carrizo. So much potential, so few sales.

I suspect it may be Seattle (and the whole ARM server business) which is throwing up red flags, and leading to the C-level cull. "Ambidextrous" was Rory's baby and Seattle was meant to be out 6 months ago, but it has sunk without a trace.

Seattle is another product that has received little attention as of late. Unlike Nolan or Amur, Seattle is supposedly already launched, or . . . something. So where is it? At this point I am genuinely surprised AMD is even bothering with ARM.

 

[NTMBK]

My guess is Byrne quit because Lisa got picked over him for CEO. They were both in the running and he lost.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Looking at JPR numbers. Its no wonder AMD gave up with desktop APUs.

AMD’s shipments of desktop heterogeneous GPU/CPUs, i.e., APUs decreased -30.0% from the previous quarter, but were up 4.6% in notebooks.

http://jonpeddie.com/publications/market_watch

 

[erunion]

Looking at JPR numbers. Its no wonder AMD gave up with desktop APUs.

http://jonpeddie.com/publications/market_watch

Its happened, Nvidia is shipping more discrete GPUs than AMD is shipping GPUs+CPUs combined.

 

[Idontcare]

My guess is Byrne quit because Lisa got picked over him for CEO. They were both in the running and he lost.

I can't imagine anyone seriously thought Byrne was in contention with Lisa, except maybe Bryne himself and a few others who just didn't know Lisa as well as they thought they knew Byrne. The resumes and Lisa's career trajectory simply put Byrne's onto a totally different track.

 

[NTMBK]

I can't imagine anyone seriously thought Byrne was in contention with Lisa, except maybe Bryne himself and a few others who just didn't know Lisa as well as they thought they knew Byrne. The resumes and Lisa's career trajectory simply put Byrne's onto a totally different track.

Ah, interesting, thanks Just going off second/third hand info from rumour sites here, appreciate your opinion.

Looking forward to seeing how Carrizo does. It seems like the only part AMD are still talking about after Amur, Nolan and Seattle have all vanished, and it seems like a sensible concept (lower power consumption and cost, get it into some more laptops) with a limited enough scope that AMD actually have a hope in hell of executing successfully.

Interesting to see that they are still struggling to balance the transistor requirements of a CPU and a GPU in the same design, and even call it out publicly on slides.

 

[RandSec]

Looking forward to seeing how Carrizo does. It seems like the only part AMD are still talking about after Amur, Nolan and Seattle have all vanished

"Vanishing" may be a possibility, but perhaps more likely is "loose lips sink chips." Still, that would be an "unforced error" in PR for a company which has not been doing well, because investors naturally want to see the management vision of a better future.

For the most part, we are seeing results as expected, about when expected. Seattle is a problem because it is part of the old strategy. And the lack of an updated 95W HSA 1.0 (and GCN 1.2 and SoC) Carrizo-Kaveri goes beyond mere disappointment to failure to support the HSA strategy itself.

But if we see Amur and Nolan as the first SkyBridge chips, the old schedule would have those still be in progress anyway. The SkyBridge strategy is arguably more important even than HSA, and probably more quickly profitable as well.

 

[mrmt]

More likely everything that has occurred from a marketing and sales strategy has seemed to be a bust over the past 36 months. It isn't necessarily about product, but moreso how product has been marketed / delivered to the world that has been a complete bust. I would wait a few months to see what AMD turns out before passing judgement on the decisions they made regarding management.

Why wait a few more months when AMD BoD itself agreed that the current strategy wasn't working and more fundamental changes were due?

 

[mrmt]

My guess is Byrne quit because Lisa got picked over him for CEO. They were both in the running and he lost.

Byrne wasn't even at the same executive level as Su. I think Su's main rival was Papermaster, but that was settled long ago in one of the restructurings.

But I agree with you, I think the entire ARM server business went bust. AMD management went from "ARM is the next best thing" to "it will succeed, but it will take some 5 years to do so". They also fired Feldman and they wrote down the value of their SeaMicro acquisition to about a third of what they paid, making it even a worse deal than the ATI acquisition was in relative terms.

But don't forget that Rory also skidded the GPU and the CPU business. Despite all his babbling about transformation, reset, predator, and others all he has to show is a 60% drop in the GPU business and a 70% drop in the CPU business. What his firing tells me is that it isn't only about ARM, they also messed up the other businesses as well.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Byrne wasn't even at the same executive level as Su. I think Su's main rival was Papermaster, but that was settled long ago in one of the restructurings.

But I agree with you, I think the entire ARM server business went bust. AMD management went from "ARM is the next best thing" to "it will succeed, but it will take some 5 years to do so". They also fired Feldman and they wrote down the value of their SeaMicro acquisition to about a third of what they paid, making it even a worse deal than the ATI acquisition was in relative terms.

But don't forget that Rory also skidded the GPU and the CPU business. Despite all his babbling about transformation, reset, predator, and others all he has to show is a 60% drop in the GPU business and a 70% drop in the CPU business. What his firing tells me is that it isn't only about ARM, they also messed up the other businesses as well.

AMD lacks focus. Look at NVIDIA -- singularly focused on GPU tech and proliferating it into as many markets as possible and capturing as much of the profit as possible.

This is why the company keeps failing. Management wants to have a huge TAM, but they can't capture any of it because they are spread far too thinly. Using the NVIDIA example, when it became clear that they couldn't compete in low cost smartphones w/ Tegra 4i, they said "OK, we're out" and got back to focusing on what they're good at.

 

[monstercameron]

AMD lacks focus. Look at NVIDIA -- singularly focused on GPU tech and proliferating it into as many markets as possible and capturing as much of the profit as possible.

This is why the company keeps failing. Management wants to have a huge TAM, but they can't capture any of it because they are spread far too thinly. Using the NVIDIA example, when it became clear that they couldn't compete in low cost smartphones w/ Tegra 4i, they said "OK, we're out" and got back to focusing on what they're good at.

I don't see this lack of focus especially in comparison to nvidia. It seems all amd wants to do is offer apus in every market...success is another matter.

Server apus - HSA enabled Java .
Embedded apus - crypto acceleration and HSA.
Hedt apus - mantle/dx12 and HSA
Mobile apus - mantle/dx12 and high integration
Semi custom apus - high integration and low cost

The stack seems very focused to me, maybe the execution wasn't that great but they still make tonnes of revenue.

 

[Phynaz]

That's the definition of lack of focus. As you said, they want to be in every market. It's scattershot.

 

[krumme]

I don't see this lack of focus especially in comparison to nvidia. It seems all amd wants to do is offer apus in every market...success is another matter.

Server apus - HSA enabled Java .
Embedded apus - crypto acceleration and HSA.
Hedt apus - mantle/dx12 and HSA
Mobile apus - mantle/dx12 and high integration
Semi custom apus - high integration and low cost

The stack seems very focused to me, maybe the execution wasn't that great but they still make tonnes of revenue.

I once worked for at big global cooperation. Very product focused, and with stellar engineering R&D standards and production technology. Actually by far the best for their product type worldwide. The were so crazy they made absolutely everything themselves - they even had a cleanroom making their own cpu - and its safe to say that wasnt the core product

The striking thing was, for each and every product, and for each and every technology developed, if i asked management why this product was going to be made, or why a technology was going to be developed, the answer was always another technical reason. (Reasons like the once you list).
When you then asked why this technical reason was important and what effect it would have - seldom they could give a precise answer, if any.
For the big technology projects, the business case, was hardly known by anybody of importance, and was hardly made with the intend of stopping things.

What i have advocated several times about AMD is lack of -business- focus, and your examples just shows that. Who gives? - if there is no quick, sharp, answer to who the customer is and what they will pay for the product, and when - then there is no reason to go there.

As i have said, in amd intire history its actually crazy how seldom they hit the market spot on, without having a huge technological advantage. Try eg for a product like Seattle to answer who - and litteraly give examples - is going to buy that product??? Even from the concept its obvious its going nowhere. And the same goes for 99% of the portfolio, as i noted prior in eg this thread.

Now amd is dependant on mubudala - also as a bank for cash - and they are forced to develop something that can use that inferior gf proces tech. Its a huge mess. But that aside - and remembering the subject of this thread - Carrizo is actually perfectly focused. Even without looking at the old process tech they have to use.

That is the big news.