Bulldozer Disappears From Roadmaps?
From the wild rumor and speculation department comes a tale of two future AMD platforms aimed at corporate customers. Like any great love triangle, there's a(n alleged) problem: lack of resources to properly develop both at once.
In this case, we're talking about AMD's upcoming Bulldozer architecture, which will follow likely follow the trend of being a server chip first, then a desktop chip second, and the laptop Fusion platform dubbed Swift. Both parts of the enterprise market are extremely lucrative and very valuable to AMD, and thus it appears that there was a lot of heated debate about which platform to focus on:
“As long ago as last summer, word was floating that AMD was getting into a scheduling crunch. The problem is that they went from a handful of development teams to many more, something around two to seven, but it depends on how you count. Some of the problems stem from that, others from other areas.
The biggest crunch is that both Fusion/Swift and Bulldozer were scheduled to come out around the same time, BD was set to tape out next September, and Swift around then as well. AMD didn't have the resources to do both at once. More than six months ago, there were fierce internal arguments over which one would go first.
The thinking was that BD would win back server marketshare, something that they needed badly, and Swift would do the same for enterprise notebooks. Both are aimed at big, lucrative markets where AMD has a low marketshare. Both had very credible arguments as to why they should go first.
We know who won, that is of course Swift, the key question is why. The answer to that is obvious, BD is a mess right now, and it is delayed. How much? Damn good question, that is the part that will make or break AMD. If it is a quarter or two, not the end of the world.”
Given the upswing of interest in UMPCs, we're wondering if AMD's supposed decision to focus on the laptop platform might only end up providing a great set of products to a market with shrinking demand. As always, take rumors with a grain of salt and stay tuned as we bring you up to date facts when they become available.
In this case, we're talking about AMD's upcoming Bulldozer architecture, which will follow likely follow the trend of being a server chip first, then a desktop chip second, and the laptop Fusion platform dubbed Swift. Both parts of the enterprise market are extremely lucrative and very valuable to AMD, and thus it appears that there was a lot of heated debate about which platform to focus on:
“As long ago as last summer, word was floating that AMD was getting into a scheduling crunch. The problem is that they went from a handful of development teams to many more, something around two to seven, but it depends on how you count. Some of the problems stem from that, others from other areas.
The biggest crunch is that both Fusion/Swift and Bulldozer were scheduled to come out around the same time, BD was set to tape out next September, and Swift around then as well. AMD didn't have the resources to do both at once. More than six months ago, there were fierce internal arguments over which one would go first.
The thinking was that BD would win back server marketshare, something that they needed badly, and Swift would do the same for enterprise notebooks. Both are aimed at big, lucrative markets where AMD has a low marketshare. Both had very credible arguments as to why they should go first.
We know who won, that is of course Swift, the key question is why. The answer to that is obvious, BD is a mess right now, and it is delayed. How much? Damn good question, that is the part that will make or break AMD. If it is a quarter or two, not the end of the world.”
Given the upswing of interest in UMPCs, we're wondering if AMD's supposed decision to focus on the laptop platform might only end up providing a great set of products to a market with shrinking demand. As always, take rumors with a grain of salt and stay tuned as we bring you up to date facts when they become available.
