AMD. History, myths and legends Bashny.Net

1969 remembered all different. The first flight of Boeing-747. Soviet Tu-144 was the first time in the history of passenger aircraft broke the sound barrier. From the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch vehicle "Proton-K", which led to the trajectory of the moon AMC Luna-15. There was ARPANET - the first prototype of the internet. In Kharkov Plant "Proton" released the first Soviet cassette tape recorder "Desna».

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And on May 1, 1969 in Chicago, was founded Advanced Micro Devices, which we now know better by the abbreviation AMD


Company founder Walter Jeremy Sanders III was very different from most prominent figures of the IT-industry. There is no doubt that, for example, Michael Dell and Bill Gates all have their own minds. But when the mind began to give the first fruits, there were relatives who invest in their first large sum.

Jerry Sanders grew up in a poor family. His father was famous for the fact that the workshop repairing traffic lights and hard drinking. So hard that it remembers and decades later. If not for my grandfather, Walter Jeremy Sanders First, the future founder of AMD, would hardly have left school and entered the University of Illinois. My grandfather was a millionaire too, but, at least, did not drink and did not spare the time for her grandson. Sanders Junior to his grandfather treated with respect and went as it should. The company "Pullman", known throughout the world for its magnificent cars, appointed him a scholarship.

But the main secret of Walter Jeremy Sanders III was that he was not going to run an electronics engineer. The diploma is necessary to obtain, where do without him. But then it would be good to go to California and become a movie actor. Moreover, as the appearance of the young man it was suitable, and certainly had the ability. But the Chicago 50-ies of the last century was not the quiet city. He is now on FBI statistics, it remains the most dangerous metropolis US, although the overall crime rate has decreased. And then ... Well, one is not the best night of his life, Jerry Sanders stood up for a friend who had a conflict with a local criminal gang Chi Seven. My friend was able to get-away, and Jerry is not. This resulted in broken ribs and jaw, broken nose and relentlessly rugged knife face. Girls, say, like men with scars. But the camera is not very much. Therefore, a career film actor had to forget. After recovering from his wounds, Jeremy focused on their studies.

After graduation he worked at Douglas Aircraft, formerly known manufacturer of aircraft (now the company absorbed the remnants of a giant Boeing). Jerry Sanders has been developing ... no, e-filling, and air conditioners. By the way, is also quite an exciting experience, but here's the problem - for it is very poorly paid. Therefore, only a year later the future founder of AMD settled in sales of Motorola, where he worked for three years. And the next employer Sanders became Fairchild Semiconductor. It is unlikely that the name is familiar to you, although the company still exists today. But it was in 1968 left Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, to establish future corporation Intel.

Then, in the late sixties, from Fairchild Semiconductor general fled engineering staff, because the company thought was right, when people do not work for money, but for the interest. People characteristically, did not think so. And now, after another outcome, a group of engineers decided to create his own company. And even the name came up - Advanced Micro Devices. That's just being creative people, they are not so good versed in business. Yes, and I do not really want to understand it. Therefore, the engineers had the idea to call the chief of the charming guy Sanders from the sales department. Jeremy did not give up. And May 1, 1969, AMD has been registered with a starting capital of 100 000 dollars.

Friend or foe?
We should not be surprised - where a group of engineers and former employee of the sales department took a hundred thousand dollars, a huge sum for that time. Start-up capital, he also authorized - there is no need to pay the whole amount at once. It is enough to make a registration fee and sign a commitment to find hundreds of thousands, if required. But on further work money was not strongly. After all, it is not required, even hundreds of thousands, millions.



Sanders hired a lawyer Tom Skorn, and with it a business plan for many years to come. Advanced Micro Devices had to develop and produce micro-electronics - semiconductor chips for computers and electronic devices. Direction seemed fantastic perspective and to begin developing needed half a million dollars. Today such sums without any problems give start-ups that promise to make litter box with a webcam. But in 1969, the plans were skeptical about AMD, and investments for a long time no one gave.

And when almost everything seemed lost, Jeremy Sanders went to his former colleague and now - a potential rival Robert Noyce. Besides himself, the founder of Intel. Robert carefully considered business plan and ... signed the check. And another said goodbye, that if suddenly all the same does not work out, Sanders will always be welcome in Intel.

Thus, it is an investment Intel formed the basis for business AMD. Over the next decade, the company's attitude was very different emotional color episodes. But this piece of history does not rewrite.

Until his death in 1990, Robert Noyce reasonably supported AMD. In particular, contributed to the development of licensing Intel, without which win a place under the sun would be much more difficult. Neuss Why do it? Sentimentality? The desire to help the former colleague? Understanding the need of a strong presence in the market, but in fact a friendly competitor? Who knows now. But perhaps, if not sudden death of Neuss in June 90th, much of the company's attitude might have been different.

However, do not assume that kind of Robert Noyce good uncle. X86 processors used in military developments, and US Department of Defense did not enjoy the prospect to stay with only one supplier of chips. As soon as the latter became less (remember, there was a zoo in the early nineties), the importance of AMD, as an alternative producer, grew. Under the agreement of 1982, AMD had all the licenses for the production of 8086, 80186 and 80286, but Intel 80386 processor svezherazrabotanny transmit AMD refused categorically. And he broke the agreement. Then followed a long and loud the trial - the first in the company's history. It ended only in 1991 with the victory of AMD. For its position Intel has paid a billion dollars to the plaintiff.

Yet relations have been marred, and its former confidence it was not. Especially that AMD went the way of reverse engineering. The company continued to produce different hardware, but have all the same microcode processor Am386, and then Am486. There have already gone to court Intel. Again, the process was delayed for a long time, and it turned out to be a success on one, then on the other side. But the December 30, 1994 was made a judgment, according to which Intel microcode is still the property of Intel, so as something bad to other companies to use it if the owner does not like it. Therefore, from 1995, everything changed seriously. On the Intel Pentium and AMD K5 run any application for x86, but in terms of architecture, they were fundamentally different. And it turns out that very much real competition from Intel and AMD began only a quarter of a century after the creation of companies.

However, to ensure compatibility of cross-pollination techniques nowhere gone. Modern Intel processors many patented AMD, on the other hand, AMD accurately adds instruction sets designed Intel.

Ahead of time
It is no secret that the share of AMD in the processor market has always been somewhat less than Intel. And the budget for development is also somewhat inferior to his older brother. In most cases this means that the company acts as a catch-up, and luring consumers by the formula "See, here we also have emerged about the same thing, only much cheaper."

But the history of AMD - especially since 1995 - shows that even relatively small budgets can be used very effectively.

In 2000, AMD released the world's first processor with 1 GHz. It was a representative of the increasingly popular family of Athlon.

In 2003, AMD released the first processors with the architecture x86, 64-bit instruction sets. They appeared at once in the server and user Opteron family Athlon. Later, these kits have appeared in the products of Intel and VIA. And until now, some operating systems call them AMD64, although marketing documents competitors prefer to own brands.



Without slowing momentum in 2004, AMD released the world's first dual-core x86-processor Athlon X2. At that time, very few applications able to use two cores simultaneously, but in a specialized software productivity gains has been very impressive.

In 2006, AMD is the world's first 4-core server processor, where all 4 cores are grown on a single chip instead of "glue" of the two, as in business colleagues. Solved most complex engineering problems - and still under development, and production.

Also in 2006, AMD bought ATI, one of the main manufacturers of graphics chips. Since then, the traditional computing and graphics have become inextricably linked in the business of AMD. As a result, this has led to the creation of hybrid processors. They will appear in 2011, the year, and for the first time show that integrated graphics can handle most tasks better than discrete.

Graphics AMD has recently settled in all major consoles - Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Wii U. However, processors, by the way. And where it is responsible for the calculation of Intel - for example, in the mighty Apple Mac Pro - provides a picture AMD. And it helps the CPU in some problems.

The list of technological breakthroughs AMD is very impressive, and every year a list of them is getting longer. Another issue on their own innovations do not always begin to sell themselves. Usually a long way ahead of the technology in silicon to its realization in the software. And when the invention comes to us, it is time to become the industry standard and come from other manufacturers. But whether it detracts from the achievements of the engineers AMD? I do not think.

Not only PC. And for a long time
The traditional PC market (and laptops, unfortunately, too) is hardly a promising and growing. Bury the good old computers are still very ill-advised, but it is clear that the future of personal computing in some other devices.

We have already mentioned, modern consoles, which uses a special version of the hybrid processors from AMD. Given that set-top box developed by a wide margin, so that after five years of playing them looked modern, easy to estimate stock performance.

The exhibition Computex, held in early June in Taiwan ( report on Geektimes ), AMD solutions crept into the NAS, where first ruled processor manufacturers architecture ARM, and in the top segment - Intel. Now a new line of NAS Qnap runs on AMD. But Qnap one of the trendsetters in this class of devices that as the number of content consumers may soon become an integral part of the household. Along with a TV, a refrigerator and a microwave.

AMD openly delayed the development of solutions for ultra mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets. SoC for the latest in the range have a pretty long time, but in the finished products are rare. The smartphone is AMD could not meet. And while Intel, using the power of its engineering and marketing departments in promoting smart processor architecture x86, AMD is preparing an asymmetric response. Together with ARM, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments Alliance formed HSA Foundation
And even with the 2012. AMD is developing a SoC architecture ARM, and by 2020 they should take a significant stake in the company's business.

Forty-six years Advanced Micro Devices has repeatedly changed radically. But the essence remains the same: small forces seek to do the impossible.

And regularly make sure that it is impossible, in general, does not exist.

Source: geektimes.ru/company/amd/blog/253282/