AMD Tech Day – June 25, 2008

Puma Notebook Platform & ATI HD4xxx Launch

Austin, TX � After AMD had acquired ATI, many folks had their doubts about the two companies coming together as one. Corporate cultures were almost polar opposites, management styles differed, and a host of other differences that, if this were a marriage, would have inevitably ended in divorce. I was pleased to see that the two are getting together quite well now and, two years after the merger, AMD/ATI have �got their groove back�.

Puma Platform
David Rooney, Senior Product Manager for the Puma Platform, was first at bat after the opening remarks by  Chris Claren (CVP Product Marketing) and Pat Moorhead (VP Advanced Marketing).

Tech Day this year centered on the launch of AMD�s new mobile platform codenamed �Puma�. Puma is similar to Intel�s Centrino initiative as it is a platform, not a processor. The Puma Platform consists of the following:

1. AMD Turion Ultra X2 processor
2. AMD 7xx chipset
3. ATI HD3xxx graphics
4. 802.11 BANG Wi-Fi

Unlike Centrino, which forces OEM to use Intel chips for all aspects of the platform, Puma allows some variation in graphics and Wi-Fi chips to allow best-of-breed performance.  For example, Centrino labeled notebooks must always use Intel Integrated Graphics Processors (IGP) chips. The Centrino Platform Specifications include some rather stringent thermal limits and variation in the chips used could lead to extra heat which would cause a laptop brand to lose their Centrino labeling. A Puma notebook can have an ATI IGP chip, or a discrete video card and, using Hybrid CrossfireX, combine the two to give the user video performance to rival desktop systems. Puma systems will be the first notebooks to support DirectX 10.1 on all models. HD3200 DX10.1 boasts 3x the performance of a Core2 T8100 + GMA X3100 (Santa Rosa reference). Puma will also support Wi-Fi chipsets from a variety of companies to give best of breed performance.

Puma systems with discrete graphics cards will include DisplayPort as well as  DVI ports.

Another Puma innovation is the inclusion of UVD2 technology. UVD is the Universal Video Decoder introduced in the HD2xxx series of discrete video cards of the desktop and it offloads HD video decoding for playback from the CPU. Two laptops were shown side-by-side; one was a non-Puma system and the other a Puma system. The non-Puma notebook did very good job of playing the BD version of the James Bond film �Casino Royale�. However, bringing up the Windows Task Manager we saw that the CPUs were pegged out at 100% utilization. The Puma system, with its UVD2 chip, was only using 50% CPU. Both systems were dual-core.

AMD claims that graphics on Puma based notebooks are 5x sharper than comparable �Santa Rosa� systems from Intel. From what I saw there, they could be right.

Battery Life
With all this power under the hood, battery life should be non-existent correct? Nope, the Boys (and Girls) from Austin covered that as well in the design of Puma. PowerXpress Technology, based on technology first deployed in �Barcelona� class Opteron processors, allows Puma based systems to shut power off in the parts of the CPU that are not being used. Cores can be clocked slower independently to help conserve power.

Other PowerXpress features include the disabling of the discrete graphics card while on battery power, a new display enhancement called Vari-Bright (which saves power by dimming the backpanel’s brightness  and boosting the gamma of the images on the screen), HyperTransport v3 (HT3) now has a variable link width and can be shut down to conserve power, and the memory controller is on its own power plane independent of the CPUs. The CPUs can power down and the memory controller stays powered up to refresh the display. AMD tests show six hours of battery life as nominal

{mospagebreak title=A Surprise Guest}
A Surprise Guest
At this point in the presentation we received a visit by Nigel Dessau, the Chief Marketing Officer of AMD. He graciously fielded the questions we had for him. This one was the biggie:

Bloggers: Is AMD in decline?

ND: No, it just needs some work. When a CMO is hired, it’s usually with a company that needs help in that area. I was hired to turn marketing around.

Mr Dessau stated that the market needs AMD to survive as an engine of innovation. All of the major developments in the PC platform: x64, onboard memory controllers, hypertransport, and true multi-core were developed by AMD.

In order to survive, AMD must:

• Show product momentum
• Show business momentum
• Show financial momentum (product of the first two)

The server market is getting more sophisticated. The client market is getting frustrated over the amount of sophistication. AMD is looking to streamline things marketing-wise in order to make things easier for the client to understand:

• Work Model � AMD Work
• Performance/Play Model � AMD Game
• Home Model � AMD Live

{mospagebreak title=Shrike Platform}

Shrike Platform
After the break, Matt Mazzantini, Sr. Product Manager for the Shrike Platform came on deck to talk about his baby. Shrike is the notebook platform that will follow Puma in the second half of 2009. The Shrike platform is based around the Fusion processor, which is now codenamed �Swift APU (Accelerated Processing Unit)�.

The Shrike Platform will also lack HyperTransport of any kind. It doesn’t need it or any kind of Northbridge technology. The Swift APU supports DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI connectors, incorporates a DDR3 memory controller and is expected to out perform Puma by 20% on the CPU and 35% on the GPU. They also expect 6+ hours of battery life under Vista.

AMD Is targeting Shrike for the Ultrathin market (LV &ULV designs – *cough* Macbook Air *cough*) and the onboard GPU will be the next generation from Puma’s HD3xxx (HD4xxx?). The APU spec calls for support of Torrenza specialty processors in the future (more on this later). Hybrid CrossfireX is also supported.

Shrike is focused on the mobile space but this does not preclude its application to desktop designs. Current AMD solutions center around 35W TDP. Shrike will cover more of the market � ultrathin to extreme gaming systems.

• Gaming systems � 43W TDP
• General purpose systems � 30W TDP
• Ultra Portable systems � 19W TDP

By the way, the aforementioned TDPs include the GPU in the calculation.

Shrike is not targeted at VIA or Intel’s Atom processors. Those are more for embedded/handheld systems. Shrike is targeting LV/ULV systems.
{mospagebreak title=Accelerated Computing}
Accelerated Computing
Next, we spoke with Hal Speed (yes, that is his real name), Sr. Product Manager of the Accelerated Computing Group. Hal’s group is working on products for the 2012-13 timeframe. One of the things that has them concerned in the multi-core arena is not so much Moore’s Law, but Amdahl’s Law.

Amdahl’s Law is expressed as a mathematical formula which calculates the amount of speed-up one experiences as more cores are thrown at the work to be done:

Where Sw = Serial Work and N = No. of cores

This formula works great if your task is 100% parallelized (instructions can be processed with no set order), however, if even 10% of the work is serial in nature (instructions must be executed in a specific order), then the efficiency curve starts to flatten quickly.

Therefore, Intel’s plan to pack 8, 16, 32 & 64 cores onto their processors will hit a processing roadblock if any of the work is serial in nature. This require a complete rewiring of the way programming is taught and may take a couple of generations before it becomes widespread.

AMD has decided to concentrate on using the available space on the die to incorporate specialty processors to accelerate compute performance in certain CPU intensive tasks. This is the basic premise of the Torrenza Project.

This discussion was followed by a brainstorming session with Hal as the kinds of specialty processors we (as bloggers) would speculate the market asking for. This was very entertaining and really insightful to the deep thinking that occurs at AMD.
{mospagebreak title=AMD goes Hollywood}
AMD goes Hollywood
Charlie Boswell, Director of Advanced Marketing � AMD Live!, took the stage and told us about the interesting way that AMD engaged artists directly to use AMD technology to help them realize their visions faster and more effectively.

Luminaries like George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez tapped the power of AMD processors for films like Star Wars: Episode 2 & 3, Sin City & Grindhouse: Planet Terror. Barcelona-based pre-visualization systems allowed the directors and producers to see how shots would look before going out and filming. However, instead of taking a week to pre-visualize, AMD powered systems rendered the scenes in minutes allowing the creative geniuses to keep their trains of thought rolling without week-long interruptions.

AMD’s goal is to put the human mind back on top of the tech.

In the world of professional music, analog recording systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars are being replaced with AMD-based digital recording systems. Smaller, more portable and far more affordable, these systems take advantage of AMD’s Direct Connect and multi-core technologies to achieve zero packet loss.

AMD first addressed the needs of the professional, then the consumer. They are now addressing the needs of the enthusiast space where mobility is key. Social media sites will see a vast improvement in the quality of content produced.
{mospagebreak title=Mobile Discrete Graphics}
Mobile Discrete Graphics
Ognjen �Ogi� Brkic, Sr. Product Manager � Notebook GPU’s, filled us in on the goodies AMD was getting ready to unleash upon us to improve our mobile gaming experiences. With Puma and the HD3xxx series GPU’s you get features like:

• Universal Video Decoder (UVD)- Accelerated HD decoding with 1080p support
• DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI interfaces
• DirectX 10.1 support
• Hybrid CrossfireX support
• ATI XGP support

XGP is short for eXternal Graphics Platform. XGP uses a proprietary external PCIe 2.0 connector. AMD will have exclusive use of this connector until August 2009, afterwards anyone can use it. This connector is the equivalent of a PCIe 1.1 x16 slot.

Built around this connector, XGP will allow AMD to expand the processing and graphics capabilities of Puma (and later, Shrike) based notebooks without having to alter the form factors of the laptops. Since the GPU(s) will be external to the laptop, the thermal profile of the laptop is unaffected. Ultrathin devices can keep their svelte profiles while being able to harness GPUs & APUs housed in externally powered and cooled enclosures. The connector is the 2nd generation of its kind, and will be available in lengths from .5m to 2m. The connector is latched to prevent accidental removal and is rated at over 10,000 insertions.

ATI Hybrid Graphics will allow you to switch between IGP and discrete graphics without rebooting. CrossfireX with XGP requires symmetrical GPUs in the laptop and XGP device. XGP boxes will allow notebooks to support up to six monitors simultaneously. There will be workstation SKUs available. USB 2.0 is provided over the same cable and XGP boxes will also serve as USB hubs.
{mospagebreak title=Cinema 2.0}
Cinema 2.0
Pat Moorhead took the stage again filling us in on Cinema 2.0: AMD’s push into photorealistic gaming. After some banter about AMD’s history as an innovator and possible future technologies like holographics and displays that exceed the resolution of the human eye, Pat showed us some in-game footage of ATI’s Spokesbabe Ruby that was indistinguishable from the cut scenes. Cinema 2.0 allows games tied in to Hollywood blockbusters to use the high resolution, high polygon count models used in filming directly in the games. Imagine playing a game where Iron Man or The Incredible Hulk look exactly like their film counterparts.

The HD4800 series of GPUs makes this all possible. With over a teraflop of processing power in each card  (housed in 800 Stream Processors) and coupled with state-of-the-art GDDR5 memory, UVD2 (dual stream decode for blu-ray picture-in-picture support), special encoders for Adobe Premier & Cyberlink PowerDirector. Add DVD upscaling in hardware with Dynamic Contrast and SD content can feel the love as well.

YouTube videos that are downloaded can be accelerated as well. Adobe has not jumped onboard with Flash video support, but Microsoft might with SilverLight.
{mospagebreak title=Benchmarking Realities}
Benchmarking Realities
Mark Welker, Client Analysis Manager, bounded onto the stage to explain how the traditional benchmarks we all knew and loved were no longer able to provide a accurate gauge of system performance.

Issues such as multi-tasking are hard to test with current methods (*cough* SysMark 2007 *cough*) and Mark’s group is tasked with coming up with better ones. In the mobile space , battery life can be affected by many factors. The backlight on the LCD display is a huge power hog. Use of technology like LED backlights or OLED will greatly reduce battery drain.

He also stated that this will be the Summer of 64-bit Vista Love. Many notebook makers will pre-load the 64-bit version to take advantage of 4GB of RAM that is now (relatively) cheap.
{mospagebreak title=Roadmap Time!}
Roadmap Q&A
Rick Gayle, Sr. Product Manager for Platform Planning, gave us a talk about future roadmaps. Here is the abbreviated (non NDA) version.

Rick’s groups sees the following technologies becoming prevalent:

• Wireless WAN
  • Currently cost prohibitive since 3G is prevalent.
  • Will probably be deployed as a 4G technology.
• Wireless USB (W-USB) to really start to take off in 2009-2010 timeframe
• Scaling of cores not as efficient as special purpose accelerators
• Virtualization will accelerate the decoupling of the OS from the hardware.
• UEFI (Universal Extended Firmware Interface) will begin shipping with Puma.

{mospagebreak title=Charlie’s Funhouse}

Demos at Charlie’s Funhouse
We were then escorted across the campus to Charlie Boswell’s Media Lab (aka The Funhouse) where we saw a demo of AMD Live in action as used by the pros. Thundering scenes from Star Wars, music mixed and recorded at Crossroads, and the gear used to do it all tantalized us as to the possibilities the technology afforded to everyone.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion
AMD looks to have a real winner with Puma, Cinema 2.0 and Shrike. The face of mobile computing and gaming are starting to blur and merge leading us into the world of Accelerated Computing. Future system designs will concentrate on the needs of the user, not the OS, as improved mobility, cinematic gaming, specialty accelerators and the decoupling of the OS from the hardware lets people take charge of the tech, not the other way around.

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