Pentium 4 Processors

The Dao of 'Dozer: Understanding AMD's next-gen Bulldozer CPU

2011 was a good year for AMD, the company has successfully launched its platform for both new netbook (Brazos) and public mobile architecture (Llano). The biggest challenge, however, is yet to come. AMD next generation processor, code-named Bulldozer, is scheduled for launch in the coming weeks. Although its initial impact will be limited, AMD 2012 server, desktop, and integration roadmaps are based on moving bulldozer to drive corporate profits and we hope to regain lost market share.

The key to understanding Bulldozer is rooted in AMD’s competitive position vis-à-vis Intel . Intel currently has an approximate 18 month lead time on its smaller rival when it comes to moving to new process technologies, while its gross margin is 16 percent higher. When it comes to research and development, the gap between the two companies is enormous. Intel spent $3.9B on R&D in Q2; AMD’s total revenue for the same period was $1.57B. What this means in the real world is that Intel can build more CPUs per silicon wafer than AMD can, earns more money per sale, and has a research fund that’s nearly 2.5x AMD’s quarterly income.

Historically, AMD has ignored these factors and designed cores that were meant to go toe-to-toe with Intel’s best in terms of single-threaded performance. This has proven to be an ineffective strategy * . AMD has never been able to retain any performance crown it took from Intel, and the cost of attempting to do so nearly killed the company. Bulldozer breaks with these trends.It is explicitly designed to lower manufacturing costs, AMD, to play the strengths of the company and help it achieve competitive parity with Intel in the long term. This required some compromises in the short term, but they were made in an intelligent manner. The result is an x86 processor that is unlike anything we've seen from either AMD or Intel before.