Міністерство Освіти Російської Федерадіі
Санкт-Петербурзький Державний Технічний Університет
Факультет Економіки та Менеджменту
Кафедра іноземних мов
РЕФЕРАТ на тему
Advanced Micro Devices
Виконав студент гр.3074/1
Кузьмін Павло Володимирович
Санкт-Петербург < p> 1999
INTRODUCTION
Now-a-days it's hard to imagine any field of human activity where the helpof computers isn't in demand. They have become what the people can't dowithout everywhere - in work, getting education, entertainment. Theirexpanding and general availability are the result of the huge step that thetechnical progress in the PC processors industry has made for the last 10years.The productivity of processors is much higher than it was even 5years ago, and the cost - lower.The other motive is the increasingcompetition among the companies producing processors.
The leading position at the market of processors was taken by Intel andthere were no companies that could seriously compete with Intel. But thelast 3 years it has to share the market with another processors producercalled AMD - Advanced Micro Devices - the company whose success is thepoint to be told about below.
3
HISTORY OF AMD
As the AMD story has unfolded, its product lines have expanded, its culturehas evolved, and the individual successes of its people have grown. Here'sa brief summary of the three decades that have passed - and a veryfavorable indication of the years that lie ahead.
Among the things that unite AMD employees around the globe is a historyhighlighted by remarkable achievement. Since 1969, AMD has grown fromafledgling start-up, headquartered in the living room of one of itsfounders, to a global corporation with annual revenues of $ 2.4 billion.
The events that shaped AMD's growth, the strengths that will drive itsfuture success, and a timeline encompassing AMD's defining moments arefeatured here.
1969-74 - Finding Opportunity
By May 1, 1969, Jerry Sanders and seven others had been toiling for monthsto pull together their scrappy start-up. The year before, Jerry had lefthis job as director of worldwide marketing at Fairchild Semiconductor, andhe now found himself heading a team committed to a well-defined mission -building a successful semiconductor company by offering building blocks ofever-increasing complexity to benefit the manufacturers of electronicequipment in the computation, communication and instrumentation markets.
Although the company was initially headquartered in the living room of oneof the co-founders, John Carey, it soon moved to two rooms in the back of arugcutting company in Santa Clara. By September, AMD had raised the moneyit needed to begin manufacturing products and moved into its firstpermanent home, 901 Thompson Place in Sunnyvale.
During the company's first years, the vast majority of its products werealternate-source devices, products obtained from other companies that werethen redesigned for greater speed and efficiency. "Parametric superiority"were the watchwords of AMD even then. To give the products even more of aselling edge, the company instituted a guarantee of quality unprecedentedin the industry - all products would be made and tested to stringent MIL-
STD-883, regardless of who the customer was and at no extra cost.
By the end of AMD's fifth year, there were nearly 1,500 employees makingover 200 different products - many of them proprietary - and bringing innearly $ 26.5 million in annual sales.
1974-79 - Defining the Future
AMD's second five years gave the world a taste of the company's mostenduring trait - tenaciousness. Despite a dogged recession in 1974-75, whensales briefly slipped, the company grew during this period to $ 168 million
, Representing an average annual compound growth rate of over 60 percent.
On its fifth anniversary, AMD began what was to become a renowned tradition
- It held a gala party, this one a street fair attended by employees andtheir families.
This was also a period of tremendous facilities expansion, including theconstruction of 915 DeGuigne in Sunnyvale, opening an assembly facility in
Manila, Philippines, and expanding the Penang factory.
4
1980 - 1983 - Finding Pre-eminence
The early 1980s were defined for AMD by two now-famous symbols. Thefirst, called the "Age of Asparagus," represented the company's drive toincrease the number of proprietary products offered to the marketplace.
Like this lucrative crop, proprietary products take time to cultivate, buteventually bring excellent return on the initial investment. The secondsymbol was a giant ocean wave. The focus of "Catch the Wave" recruitingadvertisements, the wave portrayed by the company as an unstoppable force inthe integrated circuit business.
| AMD became a leader in investment into research and development. By the |
| end offiscal year 1981, the company had more than doubled its sales over |
| 1979. Plants and facilities expanded with an emphasis on building in |
| Texas. New production facilities were built in San Antonio, and more fab |
| space was added to Austin as well. AMD had quickly become a major |
| contender in the world semiconductor marketplace. |
| 1984-1989 - Weathering Hard Times |
| AMD celebrated its 15th year with one of the best sales years in company |
| history. In the months following AMD's anniversary, employees received |
| record-setting profit sharing checks and celebrated Christmas with musical |
| group Chicago in San Francisco and Joe King Carrasco and the Crowns in |
| Texas. |
| By 1986, however, the tides of change had swept the industry. Japanese |
| semiconductor makers came to dominate the memory markets - up until now a |
| mainstay for AMD - and a fierce downturn had taken hold of the computer |
| market, limiting demand for chips in general. AMD, along with the rest of |
| the semiconductor industry, began looking for new ways to compete in an |
| increasingly difficult environment. |
| By 1989, Jerry Sanders was talking about transformation: changing the |
| entire company to compete in new markets. AMD began building its submicron |
| capability with the Submicron Development Center. |
| 1989-94 - Making the Transformation |
| Finding new ways to compete led to the concept of AMD's "Spheres of |
| Influence. "For the transforming AMD, those spheres were microprocessors |
| compatible with IBM computers, networking and communication chips, |
| programmable logic devices, and high-performance memories. In addition, |
| the company's long survival depended on developing submicron process |
| technology that would fill its manufacturing needs into the next century. |
| By its 25th anniversary, AMD had put to work every ounce of tenaciousness |
| it had to achieve those goals. Today, AMD is either # 1 or # 2 worldwide in |
| everymarket it serves, including the Microsoft ® Windows-compatible |
| business, where the company has overcome legal obstacles to produce its |
| own versions of the wildly popular Am386 ® and Am486 ® microprocessors. AMD |
| has become a pre-eminent supplier of flash, EPROM, |
| networking, telecommunications and programmable logic chips as well. And it |
| is well on its way to bringing up another high-volume production area |
| devoted to submicron devices. For the past three years, the company has |
| enjoyed record sales and record operation income. |
| AMD looks very different today than it did 25 years ago. But it is still |
| the tough, determined competitor it always was, weathering every challenge |
| because of the unending strength of its people. |
| |
| 5 |
| 1994-1999 - From Transformation to Transcendence |
| AMD's growth through the rest of the century will likely be fueled by the |
| exploding demand for mobile computing and telecommunications devices, two |
| markets for which AMD has spent years developing products. Key to the |
| company's success will be building close relationships with its customers, |
| and continuing to develop the manufacturing and process technologies |
| necessary to produce future-generation submicron devices. |
| One thing is for certain, AMD's future will be shaped by the same |
| principles that are woven into its past: a competitive drive, a focus on |
| customers, innovative new products, and the ability to learn and adapt to |
| change. Most of all, the company's future will be shaped by AMDers, the |
| people whose efforts created a successful, and now legendary, company. |
6
AMD PROCESSORS
The Am486 Processor
This CPU incorporated write-back cache and Enhanced power managementfeatures. These characteristics made the Am486 CPUs the perfect choice for
Energy Star-compliant "green" desktop systems and for the growing portablemarket segment. With clock-tripled performance speeds up to 120 MHz, this
CPU offered great price/performance value for both desktop and portablecomputers by providing power management and write-back Enhanced features atno extra premium.
The Am486 microprocessors featured Enhanced power management features,including SMM and clock control. These enhancements allowed reduced powerconsumption during system inactivity. The SMM function was implemented withan industry standard two-pin interface. In write-back mode, frequently useddata were stored in the high-speed internal cache and accessed continuallyfrom within until the data were modified, thus increasing the performanceof the CPU.
The Am5x86 Processor
The Am5x86 processor incorporated advanced features to achieve 586performance. The Am5x86 CPU runed clock quadrupled at 133-MHz with a 33-MHzexternal bus. High-performance features such as a unified 16-Kbyte cacheusing write-back technology minimized the time the x86 core must have spentwaiting for data or instructions, thereby accelerating all business andmultimedia applications.
AMD's 0.35-micron process technology enabled AMD to deliver superior valuewith the Am5x86 processor. In addition, the design and pinout of the Am5x86processor leveraged off 4th generation system costs, allowing manufacturersto position Am5x86 CPU-based systems as the best value for entry-leveldesktops or mainstream notebooks.
The AMD-K5 Processor
This processor's fifth-generation performance stemed from AMD'sindependently conceived AMD-K5 superscalar core architecture, whichcombined highly efficient reduced instruction set computing (RISC) throughput with complete x86 instruction-set compatibility.
The result was a superscalar processor solution capable of issuing fourinstructions per clock cycle twice as many as the Pentium. That was morethan enough power to run complex 32-bit operating systems and applications,as well as the huge installed base of 16-bit software.
AMD designed the AMD-K5 processor to be pin compatible with the Pentium.
And that was good news for PC manufacturers and resellers who wanted toleverage their existing PC designs and infrastructure while relying on analternative source of processors. The bottom line: Pentium hardware/socketcompatibility means no system redesign, lower design costs, and fast timetomarket.
| |
| |
| |
| 7 |
| The AMD-K6 Processor |
| As a member of AMD's E86 family of x86-based processors, the AMD-K6 gives |
| systems developers access to the largest base of programmers and existing |
| software while enabling powerful, cost-effective solutions for today's |
| increasingly sophisticated embedded applications. |
| The AMD-K6 microprocessor has redefined the desktop PC market, providing |
| sixth-generation performance at an affordable price. Now, embedded |
| applications can benefit from the reliable, affordable computing power |
| derived from this powerful microprocessor. The AMD-K6 microprocessor gives |
| embedded customers a significant performance boost which enables them to |
| produce superior products. |
| For applications such as central office switches, point-of-sale terminals, |
| information appliances and Windows based single board computers, the |
| AMD-K6E microprocessor is an excellent choice for OEMs looking to take |
| advantage of the x86 instruction set. They can continue to use the |
| industry's mostprevalent architecture to produce products with high |
| performance and fast time-to-market. |
The AMD-K6-2 Processor
| The AMD-K6-2 processor offers a powerful combination of system price and |
| performance and is the aleternative to Intel's Pentium II processor. |
| The AMD-K6-2 processor with 3DNow! technology delivers leading-edge, |
| sixth-generation performance for today's demanding Microsoft ® Windows ® |
| compatible homeand office applications. The 9.3-million-transistor |
| AMD-K6-2 processor is manufactured on AMD's 0.25-micron, five-layer-metal |
| process technology. |
The distinctive chracteristic of AMD-K6-2 processor is 3D Now! technology.
3DNow! Technology
| AMD's 3DNow! technology is the first innovation to the x86 architecture |
| that significantly enhances 3D graphics, multimedia, and other |
| floating-point-intensive PC applications to enable a superior visual |
| computing experience. |
| 3DNow! technology is a set of 21 instructions that use SIMD (Single |
| Instruction Multiple Data) and other performance enhancements to open the |
| performance bottleneck in the 3D graphics pipeline between the host CPU |
| and the 3D graphics accelerator card. |
| 3DNow! works hand-in-hand with leading 3D graphics accelerators to achieve |
| faster frame rates on high-resolution scenes, improved physical modeling |
| of real-world environments, realistic 3D graphics and images, and |
| theater-quality audio and video. |
| 8 |
The AMD K6-III Processor
This processor is the newest product of AMD issued in February of thepresent year.
This CPU, code-named "Sharptooth", is basically a K6-2 with a 256K L2
(second level) cache incorporated in the chip. It's well-known that the L2cache can cause huge impacts on the CPU's performance. By doing that, the
K6-III has the fastest L2 cache on the market - only the extinct Pentium
Pro and the extremely expensive Xeon Pentium II (a Pentium Pro in a Pentium
II suit) share the same feature. Because it remains compatible with the
Socket 7 standard, the motherboard L2 cache should become an L3 cache,which also increases the CPU's performance a little.
This innovation being used in K6-III has got the name of the TriLevel Cachedesign.
TriLevel Cache Design
AMD's TriLevel Cache design enables the AMD-K6-III processor to processinstructions faster and deliver better performance at the same clock ratethan the AMD-K6-2 processor and Intel's Pentium III.
AMD's innovative TriLevel Cache design maximizes the overall systemperformance of AMD-K6-III processor-based desktop PCs by delivering one ofthe industry's largest maximum combined system caches. This larger totalcache results in higher system performance.
AMD's TriLevel Cache design is not only the largest cache implementationfor desktop PCs, it is exceptionally fast.
The TriLevel Cache design also offers an internal multiport cache design.
This flexible design feature delivers higher system performance by enablingsimultaneous 64-bit reads and writes of both the L1 cache and the L2 cache.
In addition, each cache can be accessed simultaneously by the processorcore.
The AMD-K7 Processor
The AMD-K7 design features a number of compelling technologicalbreakthroughs, including the industry's first mainstream 200 MHz system busand the most architecturally advanced floating point capabilityeverdelivered in an x86 microprocessor.
The Microsoft Windows compatible AMD-K7 processor with 3DNow! technologyoffers seventh-generation design features that distinguish it from previousgenerations of PC processors. These innovations include a nine-issuesuperscalar microarchitecture optimized for high clock frequency, asuperscalar pipelined floating point unit, 128KB of on-chip L1 cache, aprogrammable high-performance backside L2 cache interface, and a 200 MHz
Alpha EV6-compatible system bus interface with support for scalablemultiprocessing.
The AMD-K7 processor is expected to be available in July or August of 1999and is planned to operate at clock frequencies faster than 500 MHz, based on
AMD's 0.25-micron process technology. The AMD-K7 processor will leverageexisting physical and mechanical PC infrastructure.
AMD K7 processor will definitely help AMD to compete with Intel's future
Katmai processors and beyond.
9
CONCLUSION
So with such processors as the AMD-K6-III and the AMD-K7 AMD is becomingthe most serious competitor of the Intel company at the market ofprocessors for PC. And this competition is breaking Intel's monopolybraking the technical progress in the field of computer technologies,making the producers of processors invest more money in research anddevelopment of new technologies. The result of these is the increasingtempo of the technical progress. Now it's hard to predict what processorwe will see over the next 10 years.
10
THE LIST OF KEY WORDS
AMD = Advanced Micro Devices
Intel = Intellegent Electronicscompetitionprocessorcache
CPUportablenotebookdesktopbusenchancement
3Dnow! Technology
TriLevel Cache Design
REFERENCEShttp://www.amd.com/http://www.computerheaven.net/
Journals: "Computerra"
"Computer World"
11
CONTENTS
Introduction________________________________________________________________
___3
History of
AMD________________________________________________________________4
AMD
Processors_______________________________________________________________ 7
The Am486
Processor___________________________________________________________7
The Am5x86
Processor__________________________________________________________7
The AMD-K5
Processor_________________________________________________________7
The AMD-K6
Processor_________________________________________________________8
The AMD-K6-2
Processor_______________________________________________________ 8
3DNow!
Technology____________________________________________________________8
The AMD-K6-III
Processor______________________________________________________9
TriLevel Cache
Design__________________________________________________________9
The AMD-K7
Processor_________________________________________________________9
Conclusion__________________________________________________________________
_10
The List of Key
Words_________________________________________________________11
References__________________________________________________________________
_11
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