Phenom logo

A purple comet inside the new logo for AMD Phenom. This comet also have been spotted on Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa helmet.

AMD Announces Resignation of Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Henri Richard

AMD today announced that Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Henri Richard is leaving the company in September 2007. Mr. Richard departs AMD of his own accord and on completely amicable terms.


“Henri’s primary goal at AMD has been to construct a world-class global sales and marketing organization focused on enduring relationships with major PC and server OEMs around the world. He delivered on that goal,” said AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz. “AMD is fully focused on leveraging the momentum we established during the last five years to achieve even greater levels of success ahead.” The AMD global sales and marketing organization will now report into the office of the CEO.

"After 20 years in the PC industry – and five of the most professionally rewarding years here at AMD – I have decided to make a move to a different business segment,” Mr. Richard said. “I am leaving AMD at a time when the company is in position to break the monopoly that plagues this industry. I am immensely proud of my contribution to AMD, and in particular, of the strong team I leave behind.”

Here we can read a memo about Henri's resignation from Dirk Meyer, AMD President and COO.

From Summer of AMD @ Japan

Yesterday (August 12, 2007), AMD held an event at Tokyo, Japan to demonstrate Phenom X4 operating at 3.0 GHz for Japanese public.



More info click here:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20070811/etc_aniki3ghz.html
http://journal.mycom.co.jp/news/2007/08/12/001/

In an unexpected move, AMD also introduced the new AMD Athlon64 X2 6400+ Black Edition. This is a new model in a cool mysterious box, operating at 3.2 GHz, L2 cache of 1 MB x 2, 90nm SOI for AM2.



More info here:
http://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/056/56915/

Review from AMDZone

AMD64 Magic screensaver from AMD Japan

I'm waiting for news from Japan about the Phenom X4 demo event when I found these interesting screensaver from the website http://www.amd64.jp/, called AMD64 Magic.

The first one is an anime version created by Tayuta Mikage. The second is a 3D animation of cubes containing AMD products logo.

You may download them here: http://www.amd64.jp/featured/featured010.php

AMD Break Free website

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has set up a website called "AMD Break Free" apparently with the purpose of giving the company's take on its battle with rival Intel Corp.

The website is described in an advert as being to the place to "read for yourself the truth about Intel". It's structured like a mini news site focused on antitrust enforcement, competition, public procurement and court news concerning the two processor makers.

Visit here : http://breakfree.amd.com

New Economic Study Finds Intel Extracted Monopoly Profits of $60 Billion Since 1996

A new economic study issued by Dr. Michael A. Williams, Director, ERS Group, found that Intel has extracted monopoly profits from microprocessor sales of more than $60 billion in the period 1996-2006. Dr. Williams' analysis explains why pro-competitive justifications for Intel's monopoly profits are implausible.

Williams also found that consumers and computer manufacturers could gain over $80 billion over the next decade if the microprocessor market were open to competition. The analysis noted that consumers would save at least $61 billion over the period, with computer manufacturers projected to save another $20 billion, enabling them to increase their investment in R&D create improved products and greater product variety; and provide additional innovation benefits to computer buyers around the world.

More details here: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070802/20070801006554.html?.v=1
or at AMD Virtual Press Room.

On July 27, 2007, The European Commission has issued a statement of objections to Intel regarding its alleged anti-competitive practices in the European Union. As the Commission states, the statement "outlines the Commission's preliminary view that Intel has infringed the EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant position (Article 82) with the aim of excluding its main rival, AMD, from the x86 Computer Processing Units (CPU) market."

In the [statement of objections], the Commission outlines its preliminary conclusion that Intel has engaged in three types of abuse of a dominant market position. First, Intel has provided substantial rebates to various Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) conditional on them obtaining all or the great majority of their CPU requirements from Intel. Secondly, in a number of instances, Intel made payments in order to induce an OEM to either delay or cancel the launch of a product line incorporating an AMD-based CPU. Thirdly, in the context of bids against AMD-based products for strategic customers in the server segment of the market, Intel has offered CPUs on average below cost.

Intel Ad said to be racist?

One of Intel's latest ad's shows six athletic black dudes bowing down before a dorky white guy in khaki pants. Lousy, barely subliminal racist advertising or just plain lousy advertising? You be the judge. Comments at Gizmodo.

More info:
The Inquirer - Intel under fire for 'racist' ad
StopGeek - Intel's ad. Racist? No. Really Stupid? Yes
Fudzilla - Intel in hot water over offensive ad
Times Online - Intel apologises for 'racist' computer ad

VIA Isaiah Processor scheduled on Q108

VIA Technologies is scheduled to launch its new processor core, dubbed Isaiah, in the first quarter of 2008. The Isaiah core (engineering codename CN) will replace VIA's Esther processor architecture, which was introduced in 2004.

Isaiah features a 64-bit architecture and will be manufactured on a 65nm process, as compared to 90nm for Esther. Other features include a V4 Bus speed of 1333MHz, up from 800MHz previously, and support for ECC (error checking and correction) memory and virtualization technology. The L2 Cache will also increase to 1MB from 128KB previously.

Although Isaiah's core frequency will not see any obvious increases and power consumption will be higher compared to Esther, its performance so far has been measured to be twice as fast as that delivered by the Esther architecture, and the floating point unit performance is four times greater, according to makers that are testing the new architecture.

First Look of AMD Phenom in action

Photos of AMD Phenom test system began to appear on the web. From the looks of it AMD is just about ready to drop the Hammer and give us something Phenomenal.



More Phenom details from Hot Hardware emerging on AMD Consumer Electronics Event at New York City, where the Phenom test system was also exhibited.

More photos on Phenom running Stranglehold game can be seen here at Gizmodo gallery.

Update 07/26/07: The Inquirer report on Phenom being shown-off at 3.0GHz, equipped with 3 Radeon HD2900XT.

X-Bit Labs also reported that AMD demos Phenom chips at 3.0GHz and AMD dispels K10 clock-speed concerns. Rick Bergman, who is senior vice president and general manager of graphics product group, said that all the demonstrated high-end products will be available before year end.

Update 07/31/07: Charlie Demerjian from The Inquirer did a good post to dispels some of the FUD surrounding Phenom at 3.0GHz.

Here is the YouTube video for the Phenom X4 3.0GHz demo : http://youtube.com/watch?v=R7EZmYth6TM

VIA to focus on chipsets for its own processors

For months now, VIA's ability to renew its license to produce chipsets for Intel processors has been in jeopardy.

Back in November 2006, Intel said to be pressuring VIA to exit CPU market. The Inquirer says Intel is attempting to squeeze VIA out of the processor market altogether. Although not nearly as popular as Intel and AMD chips, VIA's C7 processors have something of a following in mobile and small form-factor PCs and embedded systems. Taiwanese industry sources quoted by The Inquirer claim Intel has attempted to strike a deal with VIA whereby, in exchange for retaining a license to produce Intel-compatible chipsets, VIA would agree to stop making x86 processors altogether.

According to DigiTimes, the license issue is still not settled and VIA has decided to shift focus from chipsets for third-party processors to chipsets for its own C7 line of CPUs. The company will invest more resources in platforms for "multimedia control, commercial embedded (thin clients, industrial PCs and point of sale terminals), home multimedia and mobile embedded (ultra-mobile devices, set-top boxes, LCD TVs and car electronics)" systems, DigiTimes' sources claim. VIA's existing license to make chipsets for Intel CPUs expires on April 7, 2008, so the move might forebode an eventual pullout from the Intel chipset world.