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Advanced
Micro Devices
Company Profile

by Brady Hicks

Copyright 2021, Faulkner Information Services.
All Rights Reserved.

Docid: 00017563

Publication Date: 2105

Report Type: VENDOR

Preview

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is a perennially top-ranked contender in the
global market for microprocessors. This multi-national semiconductor
manufacturer is best known for its microprocessors, chipsets, embedded
chips, graphics processors, and related technology. The company is
divided into two main business groups: Computing and Graphics; as well as
Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom. This report takes an extended look at
AMD’s business operations.

Report Contents:

• Fast Facts
• Profile
• Strategy
• Product Lines
• Activity
• References
• 
  Related Reports

Fast Facts

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Name: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Headquarters
One AMD Place
PO Box 3453
Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3453
Phone: (408) 749-4000
Fax: (800) 538-8450
Web: http://www.amd.com/
Type of Vendor: Electronics manufacturer of semiconductors, memory
chips, and ICs
Founded: 1969
Service Areas: Global
Employees: 12,600 (2020)
Stock Symbol: AMD (NASDAQ)

---

Profile

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AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is a global semiconductor company that runs
facilities worldwide and is based out of Sunnyvale, California.

The company
develops computer processors and related technology for the commercial and
consumer markets, with its main products including microprocessors, chipsets,
embedded processors, graphics processors, and other processor technology. AMD’s
organizational structure includes two main business groups:

• Computing and
  Graphics
• Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom

AMD trails Intel but is still one of the largest global suppliers
of microprocessors based on the x86 architecture, and is frequently the largest
supplier of graphics processing units.

History & Milestone Events

A brief timeline of AMD’s history is
outlined below:

• 1969 – Is founded by WJ Sanders,
  who leaves
  his job as director of worldwide marketing for Fairchild Semiconductor.
• 1970 – Launches its first proprietary product: the
  Am2501.
• 1972 – Announces its IPO.
• 1973 – Sees its first ex-CONUS manufacturing base go into
  full production in Penang, Malaysia.
• 1976 – Signs a patent cross-license agreement with Intel.
• 1977 – With Siemens, establishes Advanced Micro Computers (AMC).
• 1979 – Sees its shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
• 1983 – Incorporates AMD Singapore.
• 1990 – Names Rich Previte as President and COO.
• 1992 – Ends five years of arbitration with
  Intel when it is awarded
  full rights to make and sell the entire Am386 family of microprocessors.
• 1993 – With Fujitsu, establishes a joint venture to produce Flash
  memory technology.
• 2000 – Sells its communication product division to
  Francisco Partners.
• 2001 – Enters into
  a restructuring process that includes layoffs and plant closures.
• 2003 – Teams with Fujitsu to open Flash memory company FASL
  LLC … Releases the Athlon 64
  and Opteron 64 processor families.
• 2004 – Sees President and CEO Hector Ruiz appointed chairman of AMD’s
  Board.
• 2005 – Rolls out the Athlon 64 dual-core processor, and announces plans to introduce a technology for four or more CPUs on a
  single chip … Files a lawsuit against Intel
  in both the US and Japan.
• 2006 – Purchases ATI Technologies for $5.4 billion.
• 2007 – Discloses plans to let go 3% of its global
  workforce, or 430 employees, to cut costs.
• 2008 – Sells 49 million newly issued company shares to Mubadala for $608 million.
• 2009 – Alongside ATIC and Mubadala Development Company,
  unveils the GLOBALFOUNDRIES joint venture.
• 2010 – Introduces a lineup of sub-$100 Phenom II and Athlon II
  processors for the mainstream desktop computing market … Discontinues the ATI
  Graphics brand and begins selling graphics cards under the AMD brand name …
  Unveils the Fusion APU series.
• 2011 – Introduces a Fusion APU line for
  tablet devices … Sees CEO Dirk Meyer resign, with former Lenovo executive Rory Read
  taking
  over … Expands its graphics card line to include new multi-monitor
  offerings and a
  line of graphics card choices for Apple’s Macbook line.
• 2012 – Confirms that its processors will power the
  Nintendo Wii U gaming console … Signs a deal with Telus to power the Canadian
  telecom carrier’s new Virtual Private Cloud … Acquires cloud computing company
  SeaMicro and adds the assets of the acquired firm to its own Data Center Server
  Solutions Business.
• 2013 – Sells – then leases back – its
  Austin, Texas, campus, generating $164 million in cash … Announces that its CPU
  will power the Sony PS4 gaming console.
• 2014 – Appoints former Freescale Semiconductor
  executive Lisa Su as President and CEO as part of the company’s ongoing transition plan … Announces its new
  corporate business structure, with a Computing and Graphics business group and
  an Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom group.
• 2015 – Previews its upcoming
  “Carrizo” A-series APU processor for laptops and low-powered desktops.
• 2016 – Names Board member John Caldwell as its newest
  Chairman … Releases its mobile A-Series processor (“Bristol Ridge”).
• 2017 – Rolls out its Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 desktop processor
  sets, which are based on the new “Zen” core micro-architecture … Enters into a
  collaboration with Microsoft to incorporate the cloud-based delivery
  features of its “Naples” processor with Microsoft’s Project Olympus hyperscale cloud-based hardware design.
• 2018 – Delivers Ryzen desktop processors, Zen
  architecture-based chips, and EPYC Embedded 3000 and 7000 series
  processors … Teams with Amazon Web Services to roll out EPYC instances
  on Amazon’s EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) service … Details its planned
  7nm compute and graphics portfolio … Releases the "Rome" Zen 2 core
  architecture … Adds Ryzen Threadripper, Athlon and Ryzen PRO desktop
  processors … Announces a series of personnel shifts, including the
  appointment of Saeid Moshkelani as SVP and GM, Client Compute Group, as
  well as the departure of SVP and GM, Computing and Graphics, Jim
  Anderson.
• 2019 – Unveils new PRO series mobile processors as
  well as the first members of its 2019 mobility lineup of
  notebook-specific chips … Releases Ryzen 3rd Gen, 9 3950X, PRO 3000,
  and Threadripper 3960X and 3970X, as well as 2nd Gen EPYC processors …
  Hires former Synaptics President and CEO, Rick Bergman as EVP, Computing
  and Graphics … Forges a partnership to allow Samsung to license its
  graphics technology for its devices.
• 2020 – Releases new Ryzen PRO 4000 series, 3 3100, 3300X,
  3990X, 2nd Gen EPYC, and Ryzen R1000 processors … Partners with Oxide
  Games to develop graphics technology for the cloud-based gaming market
  … Joins the Confidential Computing Consortium … Teams with Google
  Cloud to release a beta version of N2D virtual machines … Unveils the
  Instinct MI100 accelerator, a HPC graphics processor that surpasses
  10-teraflop performance … Signs agreement with IBM to extend both
  companies’ security and AI offerings … Enters into acquisition
  agreement to buy Xilinx in an all-stock, $35 billion transaction …
  Announces 7nm x86 desktop and Ryzen Threadripper Pro series processors
  … Names former Cisco Chief Strategy Officer, Anuj Kapur, as President
  of Corporate Development & Strategy.
• 2021 – Sees its investors, as well as those of Xilinx,
  approve their merger for the end of the calendar year … Expands its agreement
  with Cisco toward helping accelerate "advanced" digital experiences and
  improve hybrid cloud operations.

Strategy

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AMD’s focus is to develop HPC (high-performance computing) and visualization
products "that transform all of our lives." The company’s business strategy is to refocus its operations to address markets beyond
core PC processor areas to address other high-growth, adjacent markets,
representing the embedded, professional graphics, semi-custom, dense server, and
ultra low-power client markets. In particular, it continually looks to derive
about 50% of its revenue from such high-growth adjacent markets.

In terms of R&D, AMD focuses on continually
improving and enhancing its product design, including delivering next-generation
products with improved system-level integration of CPU and GPU; and transforming
its products into SOCs with improved system performance and performance-per-watt
characteristics. AMD also collaborates, from time to time, with industry leaders
in process technology, software, and other functional intellectual property, and
works with others in the industry, as well as public foundations, universities,
and industry consortia to conduct early-stage R&D.

Finally, AMD continues to espouse a differentiated
viewpoint than its main competitor, Intel. The “other” CPU
manufacturer has remained very competitive by releasing processors that rely on
internally-developed technology. Traditionally, AMD has criticized Intel’s continued
reliance on an ever-growing number of processor cores, and believes that its own
philosophy has given it an advantage in power savings and heat reduction several
times in its history.

Strengths

AMD provides its technology to hundreds of millions of
consumers, leading Fortune 500 businesses, and cutting-edge research
facilities, alike. The company is now part of the NASDAQ-100 Index (#28), a
listing of the 100 largest "non-financial companies" based on market
capitalization. The firm’s growth over the years in spite of the strong
presence of rival chipmaker Intel is indicative of AMD’s likely greatest
strength: its dedication to attacking niche markets. Several years ago,
Forbes noted¹ that AMD’s largest potential growth would come from
"beyond the PC market," where AMD is a “highly flexible, yet
strong, opportunistic predator that can squeeze itself into niches for
protection and dart out to attack.” This prophecy has largely come true in
that AMD is an active driver in areas such as HPC (high-performance
computing), graphics, and visualization technology, all of which it views as
the "building blocks" for gaming, immersive platforms, and the data center.
AMD also often licenses ARM architecture designs for its technology,
focusing on what it calls “timely design” and offering “high-performing products
at an attractive price point,” according to its 10-K filing with the US
Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other competitive advantages from which
the chipmaker draws strength have included:

• Development of cutting-edge mobile, desktop, and graphics processors.
• Core customers such as AWS, Microsoft, and HPE
• Partnership with IBM to drive confidential computing in hybrid,
  cloud-based environments using open-source software, open standards, and
  open systems architecture

Weaknesses

AMD’s most glaring vulnerability, by far, is the level of competition that it
faces daily. The markets in which its products are sold are very competitive,
with AMD’s ability to deliver the “latest and best” products to market “on a
timely basis” being critical to its ability to stay active in the arena. In
particular, AMD is vulnerable to factors such as rapid technological changes,
frequent product introductions by competitors, price competition, and new
competitors that emerge over time, many that provide a better
performance/experience or include additional features that render its own
products uncompetitive. In particular, Intel has greater financial resources than AMD, and accordingly spends
larger amounts on marketing and R&D.

Intel also exerts “substantial” influence over
computer manufacturers and distribution channels, and has also been able to
control the x86 microprocessor computer system standards and benchmarks, as well
as dictate the types of products this market then requires of AMD. Intel’s
reputation also allows it to dominate the
computer system platform, which includes core logic chipsets, graphics chips,
motherboards, and other components. It also affects AMD’s ability to compete
with other discrete GPU vendors such as NVIDIA, to which Intel can grant preferential
access to its proprietary graphics interface.

Other risk factors for the company include:

• Economic and strategic risks
• Operational and technological risks
• Legal and regulatory risks
• Xilinx merger and acquisition risks
• Liquidity and capital resource risks

Outlook

For its full fiscal year 2021, AMD projects revenue growth of 50 percent over
FY20, driven by "growth in all businesses." According to President and CEO, Lisa
Su, this increased full-year guidance highlights "strong growth" that AMD
expects, based on "increasing adoption of our high-performance computing
products and expanding customer relationships."

Product Lines

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At its core, AMD is a manufacturer of x86 microprocessors – either as
standalone devices or as incorporated into an APU (accelerated processing unit)
– as well as chipsets, discrete GPUs (graphics processing units), and
professional graphics. AMD also offers server and embedded processors,
semi-custom SoC (System-on-Chip) offerings, and technology for gaming consoles.

AMD’s primary products are listed in Table 1.

Major Competitors

AMD’s top competitor, Intel, remains the consensus microprocessor market
leader with the presence, margins, and financial resources needed to continue to
market its products aggressively. In particular, this capability allows Intel to
target AMD customers and channel partners with special incentives while also
influencing other customers. AMD’s other competitors tend to include companies
that develop or provide ARM-based designs and low-power processors for the
computing market, as well as dense
servers, set-top boxes, and gaming consoles. Graphics market competitors,
meanwhile, include suppliers of discrete graphics, embedded graphics processors,
and IGP chipsets. AMD’s principal competitor in the graphics market is NVIDIA.

• ARM: http://www.arm.com/
• Imagination:
  https://www.imaginationtech.com/
• Intel: http://www.intel.com/
• Micron Technology: http://www.micron.com/
• NEC: http://www.nec.com/
• NVIDIA: http://www.nvidia.com/
• Qualcomm: http://www.qualcomm.com
• Samsung: http://www.samsung.com/us/
• VIA Technologies: http://www.viatech.com/en/

Activity

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Mergers, Acquisitions, and Divestitures

AMD and Xilinx announced that their
respective shareholders voted to approve the proposed acquisition
of Xilinx by AMD. The transaction will bring together
complementary product portfolios for CPUs (central processing
units), GPU (graphics processing units), FPGAs
(field-programmable gate arrays), Adaptive SoCs
(systems-on-chip), and “deep” software. Closure remains subject
to “other customary closing conditions” and “regulatory
approvals.” The transaction is expected to be finalized “by the
end of 2021.”

(04/07/2021)

AMD and Xilinx announced that their
respective shareholders voted to approve the proposed acquisition
of Xilinx by AMD. The transaction will bring together
complementary product portfolios for CPUs (central processing
units), GPU (graphics processing units), FPGAs
(field-programmable gate arrays), Adaptive SoCs
(systems-on-chip), and “deep” software. Closure remains subject
to “other customary closing conditions” and “regulatory
approvals.” The transaction is expected to be finalized “by the
end of 2021.”

(04/07/2021)

AMD and Xilinx announced that they
will hold separate Special Meetings of Stockholders on April 7,
2021. This meetings will see the companies respective investors
vote to approve the AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx. in a transaction
that will bring together “two industry leaders with complementary
product portfolios,” including CPUs (central processing units),
GPUs (graphics processing units), FPGAs (field-programmable
gate arrays), Adaptive SoCs (systems-on-chip), and “deep”
software for cloud, edge, and end devices. Terms have not been
released.

(03/08/2021)

AMD has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Xilinx in an all-stock
transaction valued at $35 billion. This combination will create a
top HPC (high-performance computing), and is expected to
significantly expand the “breadth of AMD’s product portfolio and
customer set” by bringing together “two industry leaders with
complementary product portfolios and customers.” Together, the
companies will feature a team of 13,000 engineers. Xilinx
shareholders will receive a fixed-exchange ratio of 1.7234 shares
of AMD common stock for each share of Xilinx common stock they
hold at the closing of the transaction. Current AMD investors
will own 74 percent of the combined company, with Xilinx
stockholders holding the remaining 26 percent. The transaction –
which has been unanimously approved by both companies’ Boards
– is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, in addition
to “other customary closing conditions,” and is expected to close
by the end of calendar year 2021.

(10/27/2020)

AMD has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Xilinx in an all-stock
transaction valued at $35 billion. This combination will create a
top HPC (high-performance computing), and is expected to
significantly expand the “breadth of AMD’s product portfolio and
customer set” by bringing together “two industry leaders with
complementary product portfolios and customers.” Together, the
companies will feature a team of 13,000 engineers. Xilinx
shareholders will receive a fixed-exchange ratio of 1.7234 shares
of AMD common stock for each share of Xilinx common stock they
hold at the closing of the transaction. Current AMD investors
will own 74 percent of the combined company, with Xilinx
stockholders holding the remaining 26 percent. The transaction –
which has been unanimously approved by both companies’ Boards
– is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, in addition
to “other customary closing conditions,” and is expected to close
by the end of calendar year 2021.

(10/27/2020)

Products and Services

AMD‘s EPYC 7003 series
processors were announced as part of the new HPE Cray supercomputer for the
National Supercomputing Center, Singapore. This HPC
(high-performance computing) system will use a combination of
EPYC 7763 and EPYC 75F3 processors, and should offer a
theoretical peak performance of 10 petaflops. The supercomputer
is planned to become fully operational “by 2022.”

(05/11/2021)

AMD announced the
Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 software update. This edition
works to provide gamers, creators, and enthusiasts with visual
fidelity, ultra-responsive gaming, and other advanced features to
“unlock the full potential of their AMD gaming experience.”

(04/20/2021)

AMD announced new
CPU and GPU products. Releases include new Ryzen PRO 5000
series mobile processors with up to eight cores, 16 threads, and
20MB cache; as well as new EPYC 7003 series chips for
supporting HPC (high-performance computing), cloud, and
enterprise operations. The system processors, in particular, top
out at 64 cores, 128 threads, and 256MB cache. Full
details and information are available via the AMD Web site.

(03/16/2021)

Shortly after debuting its Exynos 2100 chipset, Samsung revealed that AMD silicon will power the GPU
in the company’s next flagship smartphone core. The unit in
question, which is expected to serve as a follow-up to the Exynos
2100, is the result of a collaboration originally announced in
2019 between the smartphone maker and chip manufacturer. While
Samsung itself did not provide any specific details on which
device the chipset might make its debut in, a tweet from well-known leaker Ice Universe suggests that the
unit might power Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Fold 3 smartphone.
No other details are known about the upcoming collaboration.
However, AMD’s position as one of the top PC GPU makers in the
market suggests that the as-yet-unnamed chipset will provide a
significant boost in graphical and gaming performance when it
does reach the public.

(01/13/2021)

AMD introduced its
Ryzen 5000 series of mobile processors. The releases are based
on the “Zen 3” or “Zen 2” core architecture, and include Ryzen 9,
7, 5, and 3 series options with 4-8 cores, 8-16 threads, and up
to 20MB cache. Additional details
and specs are available via the AMD Web site.

(01/12/2021)

AMD introduced the
Instinct MI100 accelerator. This HPC (high-performance computing)
graphics processor is the first x86 server GPU to surpass
10-teraflop performance. The release is built on AMD’s CDNA
architecture, and offers up to 11.5 teraflops of peak FP64
performance for HPC, and up to 46.1 teraflops of peak FP32 Matrix
performance for AI (artificial intelligence) and ML
(machine-learning) workloads.

(11/16/2020)

AMD has launched a new product in its high-performance
Embedded processor family: the Ryzen Embedded V2000 Series
processor. The release is built on 7nm process technology, and
features Zen 2 cores and high-performance Radeon graphics. The
Ryzen Embedded V2000 Series features up to eight CPU cores, 16
threads, and 4MB cache.

(11/10/2020)

AMD has added new
Ryzen and Athlon mobile processors for Chromebook. The releases
are touted as offering 178 percent faster Web browsing and 212
percent improved performance for multi-tasking and content
creation, both over previous designs. The processor set tops out
at four cores, eight threads, 10 GPU cores, and 6MB cache. More
detailed specifications are available via the AMD Web site.

(09/22/2020)

AMD announced new
7nm x86 desktop processors with built-in graphics. The Ryzen
4000 series and Athlon 3000 series chips feature support for the
“Zen 2” core architecture, Radeon graphics, advanced technology,
and multi-layer security features. The releases top out at eight
CPU cores as 12MB cache. Additional details and specifications are available via the AMD Web site.

(07/21/2020)

AMD announced new
Ryzen Threadripper PRO processors. The chips feature up to 64
cores, full-spectrum compute capabilities, and high-frequency,
single-core performance, and are designed to offer “unrivalled”
bandwidth built with enterprise-grade PRO technology. The set is
designed for workstations. Additional info
is available via the AMD Web site.

(07/14/2020)

AMD released the Ryzen
PRO 4000 series. This family of x86 7nm commercial notebook
processors reportedly delivers the “most cores and threads in an
ultrathin business notebook.” The chips – which feature up to 8
cores and 16 threads – are optimized for remote work capabilities
and support multi-threading performance, anywhere-anytime
productivity, multiple security feature layers, seamless
manageability, and reliable longevity. The Ryzen PRO 4000 series
will roll out “in the first half of 2020.” More detailed specifications are available via the AMD Web site.

(05/07/2020)

Alliances and Joint Ventures

Microsoft revealed
plans to broaden the confidential computing options available for
Azure through its ongoing partnership with AMD. Specifically, Microsoft
plans to offer confidential VMs (virtual machines) running EPYC
7003 series processors. The approach complements existing Azure
confidential computing solutions such as confidential containers
for Azure Kubernetes Service, and also allows for creating
confidential applications without requiring code modification.

(03/15/2021)

Cisco Systems
expanded its agreement with AMD toward helping
businesses?accelerate “advanced” digital experiences and improve
hybrid cloud operations. As part of this partnership, Cisco is
unveiling new UCS rack server models with EPYC 7003
processors. The units feature native integration with the Cisco
Intersight hybrid cloud platform and are designed to support
streamlined management and continuous SaaS
(Software-as-a-Service) innovations.

(03/15/2021)

AMD announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS)
unveiled a new cloud instance for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
(Amazon EC2). The Amazon EC2 G4ad instances are designed for
“graphics-optimized” workloads, and are powered by AMD 2nd Gen EPYC processors and AMD Radeon Pro V520 GPUs. The new
G4ad instance will be available “later this month.”

(12/02/2020)

IBM and AMD have signed a multi-year joint development agreement to enhance and extend
both companies’ security and AI (artificial Intelligence)
offerings. The partnership builds on open software, standards,
and system architecture, and will focus on collaborative
activities toward driving “confidential computing” in hybrid
cloud-based infrastructure; supporting accelerators across HPC
(high-performance computing) environments; and incorporating
virtualization, encryption, and other critical elements.

(11/11/2020)

IBM and Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) have entered a
multi-year agreement focused on enhancing their security and
artificial intelligence offerings. The joint development
agreement will build on open-source software, open standards, and
open system architectures to drive Confidential Computing in
hybrid cloud environments. Confidential Computing allows the data
associated with a virtual machine to be encrypted, even while
workloads are running. This capability helps prevent would-be
attackers and bad actors from accessing information, even in the
event of a break-in. According to Gartner, Confidential Computing
potentially removes the remaining barrier to hybrid cloud
adoption for highly regulated businesses such as healthcare and
financial institutions as well as organizations concerned about
unauthorized third-party access to data in the public cloud.
Joint development activities between AMD and IBM researchers
under the agreement are currently underway.

(11/11/2020)

AMD and the Okinawa
Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University deployed a set of EPYC 7702 processors for use in a new
HPC (high performance computing) system. The processor-based
supercomputer is expected to deliver up to 2.36 petaflops of
computing power to assist scientific research at the school, in
particular accommodating “computationally intensive” research
into bioinformatics, computational neuroscience, and physics.

(10/01/2020)

AMD has announced that VMWare is adding support for
its Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State processor
technology within vSphere R7.0U1. VMware vSphere now enables
modern, hardware-enabled features as found in 2nd Gen AMD
EPYC processors, for virtualized and HCI (hyper-converged
infrastructure) environments.

(09/30/2020)

AMD is contributing HPC
(high-performance computing) technology to assist the battle
against the novel coronavirus. The chipmaker will specifically
provide access to high-end computing systems and POD
(Penguin-on-Demand) cloud-based clusters powered by end Gen
EPYC and Radeon Instinct processors to 21 institutions and
research facilities. The technology, it was noted, totals 12
petaflops of supercomputing capacity donated to date through the
AMD COVID-19 HPC Fund.

(09/14/2020)

AMD and Google Cloud announced the
beta availability of Confidential Virtual Machines for Google
Compute Engine. The release is powered by 2nd Gen EPYC
processors, and is the first product in Google’s new Confidential
Computing portfolio. Supported features include real-time
encryption-in-use, SEV (secure encrypted virtualization), “Lift
and Shift Confidentiality,” and high performance.

(07/14/2020)

AMD has integrated its 2nd Gen EPYC processor to power the
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute
Cloud (EC2)’s C5a
instances. The release – which is available in portions of the
US, Europe, and the Asia Pacific – runs at frequencies of up to
3.3GHz, and can support a “broad set of compute-intensive
workloads” including batch processing, distributed analytics,
data transformations, log analytics, and Web applications. The
rollout includes eight configurations with up to 96 virtual CPUs.

(06/08/2020)

AMD announced that the
NVIDIA DGX A100 advanced
AI (artificial intelligence) system now
features its 2nd Gen EPYC processing. This HPC
(high-performance computing) system delivers 5 petaflops of AI
performance, as well as an elastic architecture designed to
accelerate diverse AI workloads such as data analytics, training,
and inference. The AMD EPYC processor supports PCIe 4 for
“high-bandwidth” I/O (input / output) for HPC and improved
connections between CPUs and other devices such as GPUs.

(06/08/2020)

Personnel and Organizational

AMD has appointed Alex
Starr as an AMD “Corporate Fellow.” This designation is based on
what AMD called Starr’s “outstanding technical leadership” and
“contributions pioneering advanced emulation methodologies” as a
15-year AMD methodology architect. Currently, seven company
engineers hold the title of Corporate Fellow.

(07/16/2020)

Financials

AMD reported strong
profit and revenue growth, year on year, for the fiscal 2021
first quarter ended March 27, 2021. Net income was $555 million,
or $0.45 per share, marked by a 243 percent increase over fiscal
2020 Q1 earnings of $162 million, or $0.14 per share. AMD’s
revenue base was $3.4 billion, which is up by 93 percent from
FY20Q1 sales of $1.8 billion. In terms of revenue by business
segment, Computing and Graphics improved 46 percent Y2Y to
$2.1 billion, while Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom grew
286 percent to $1.35 billion.

(04/27/2021)

AMD recorded strong
year-on-year profit growth for the 2020 fourth quarter and full
year ended December 31, 2020. Earnings included a fourth quarter
income tax benefit of $1.3 billion associated with “valuation
allowance release.” Q4 income was $1.8 billion, or $1.45 per
share, an amount that is up from 19Q4 earnings of $170 million,
or $0.15 per share. Revenues, meanwhile, were $3.2 billion, which
is up by 53 percent when compared to 2019 Q4 sales of $2.1
billion. By segment, Computing and Graphics revenue improved 18
percent year to year to $1.96 billion, while Enterprise, Embedded
and Semi-Custom revenue improved 176 percent to $1.28 billion.
For the full-year period, AMD’s neet income totaled $2.5 billion,
or $2.06 per share, which is up by 630 percent from 2019 profits
of $341 million, or $0.30 per share. Revenues were $9.8 billion,
which is up by 45 percent from 2019 sales of $6.7 billion, with
Computing and Graphics pulling in $6.4 billion, and Enterprise,
Embedded and Semi-Custom reaching $3.3 billion.

(01/26/2021)

AMD posted strong net
income growth, year to year, of 225 percent for the fiscal 2020
third quarter ended September 26, 2020. Profits were $390
million, or $0.32 per share, compared to fiscal 2019 Q3 earnings
of $120 million, or $0.11 per share. Revenues, meanwhile, were
$2.8 billion. This amount marked the fourth consecutive quarter
of at least 25 percent growth, and was good for a 56 percent Y2Y
improvement over fiscal 2019 third quarter sales of $1.8 billion.
By segment, Computing and Graphics revenue grew 31 percent
year to year to $1.67 billion; Enterprise, Embedded and
Semi-Custom sales increased 116 percent to $1.13 billion; and
other areas of operation experienced a 41 percent further dropoff
to losses of $76 million.

(10/27/2020)

AMD posted strong net
income growth, year to year, of 225 percent for the fiscal 2020
third quarter ended September 26, 2020. Profits were $390
million, or $0.32 per share, compared to fiscal 2019 Q3 earnings
of $120 million, or $0.11 per share. Revenues, meanwhile, were
$2.8 billion. This amount marked the fourth consecutive quarter
of at least 25 percent growth, and was good for a 56 percent Y2Y
improvement over fiscal 2019 third quarter sales of $1.8 billion.
By segment, Computing and Graphics revenue grew 31 percent
year to year to $1.67 billion; Enterprise, Embedded and
Semi-Custom sales increased 116 percent to $1.13 billion; and
other areas of operation experienced a 41 percent further dropoff
to losses of $76 million.

(10/27/2020)

AMD‘s income level grew
348 percent year to year, hitting $157 million for the fiscal
2020 second quarter. The three-month period ended June 27th also
saw per-share earnings of $0.13, compared to fiscal 2019 Q2
profits of $35 million, or $0.03 per share. AMD’s revenues,
meanwhile, were $1.9 billion, which is up by 26 percent from
FY19Q2 sales of $1.5 billion. By segment, Computing and
Graphics revenue improved 45 percent year to year to $1.37
billion, while Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom sales
declined 4 percent to $565 million.

(07/28/2020)

References

¹ Kay, Roger. “Intel and AMD: The Juggernaut Vs. The
Squid.” Forbes. November 25, 2014.

About the Author

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Brady Hicks
is an editor with Faulkner Information Services. He writes about computer and
networking hardware, software, communications networks and equipment, and the
Internet.

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