by Anton Shilov
07/22/2011 | 02:04 PM
Advanced Micro Devices this week reaffirmed plans to start shipments of it sixteen-core AMD Opteron "Interlagos" microprocessors next month. The company also expects all of its server partners to unveil servers based on its chips with Bulldozer micro-architecture this year.
"[AMD Opteron] 'Interlagos', which is our server-based product, will begin shipping initial production next month," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of products group at AMD, during a conference call with financial analysts.
Shipments for revenue in August mean that the Sunnyvale, California-based chip designer is on-track to introduce actual servers powered by the latest server microprocessors in September so to fit into the calendar Q3 2011.
AMD Opteron 6200-series central processing units (CPUs) code-named Interlagos will have twelve or sixteen cores based on Bulldozer micro-architecture be drop-in compatible with existing G34 multi-socket server platforms and will bring a number of enhancements. In particular, the new microprocessors will sport a new memory controller with higher bandwidth, dynamic overclocking technology and some other improvements. Just like the predecessor, the Interlagos is a multi-chip-module that incorporated two code-named Valencia dies that contain up to eight cores.
"We expect to begin shipping our first server platform featuring the Bulldozer this quarter. The Interlagos platform is our first server offering optimized for today's cloud datacenters. The [Bulldozer] [micro]-architecture excels at compute-intensive and HPC workloads, where it will deliver up to 35% performance improvements compared to our current offerings. Customer excitement for Interlagos is high: all of our major customers are expected to introduce servers based on the new platform this year. We are committed to the server market and are focused on returning the business to a growth trajectory," said Thomas Seifert, interim chief executive officer of AMD.
Being on-track with 16-core AMD Opteron "Interlagos" processors based on Bulldozer micro-architecture is crucial for AMD, whose server market share has been declining for many years now. The new Bulldozer micro-architecture is projected to increase performance significantly compared to the previous-generation K10.5, which is why the actual Opteron chips will be more competitive. AMD also cannot risk its reputation among server makers, who either have already started to pre-announce systems with Bulldozer microprocessors or to recommend the machines to their clients with estimated deliver dates. For example, Cray said back in May that its hybrid XK6 systems based on AMD Opteron 6200 "Interlagos" processors and Nvidia Tesla 2000-series compute boards would be available in the second half of this year.