DigiTimes recently named two companies as International News Makers in 2005. One of those companies was Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
After a long period of being considered the under-dog of the microprocessor world, AMD emerged, particularly with its K7 generation of processors, as a company that could provide formidable competition on price-performance. AMD didn’t stop there; it made a bold move in advancing the industry to 64-bit performance, at a time when the competition (read: Intel) was preoccupied with thermal issues.
The success of the Athlon64, and with it, the elevation of the AMD Opteron processor to a key role in the server space, then followed. The important role of the HyperTransport interconnect, the on-chip integration of the memory controller, the ability of the Opteron processor to scale to multi-processing configurations, the adoption of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) fabrication technology – these are just a few of the contributing factors in AMD’s ongoing re-definition of the microprocessor landscape.
DigiTimes.com spoke with Henri Richard, AMD executive vice president and chief officer for marketing and sales, when he visited Taipei earlier this month and accepted DigiTimes.com’s International News Maker 2005, award.
This is Part V of a five-part interview. Part I appeared on 13 March, Part II on 14 March, Part III on 15 March and Part IV on 16 March.
Q: It’s easy to assume that leadership in the industry means going it alone, but clearly, key to AMD’s strategic challenge to Intel’s larger market presence has been the ability to leverage partnerships, notably with IBM. As we noted, Fab 36 will implement 65-nanometer technology from IBM. I’d be interested in your comments on IBM and the role of partnership in today’s processor industry.
A: Obviously, one of what I think are the key strengths of AMD is this relationship with IBM at the technology level. It's running smoothly, and the team has now been working together for quite a while. They have reached the right level of efficiency and exchange of ideas; it’s a genuine collaboration. And I think that the combination of AMD, which has a great manufacturing engine, and IBM, which has a great R&D engine, will continue to provide a very tough competitive environment for Intel, despite its size and resources.
Q: Do you have any comments on partners other than IBM, such as Nvidia. Another company that comes to mind is VIA, here in Taiwan.
A: We are really lucky to have four great partners: ATI, Nvidia, SiS and VIA. All of them are partners with us in different ways. Each of them has elected to focus on one aspect of AMD business more than another. You were mentioning that we have a very close relationship with Nvidia. That’s true because Nvidia has been doing very well in the gaming space, and of course a combination of their FX graphics and SLI is the configuration of choice today. ATI, obviously, has a very strong presence in the mobile space, so there’s a very strong relationship there. And VIA understands the Asia Pacific markets very, very well and is very strong in terms of low-cost manufacturing. VIA has a very important presence in, for example, our mainland China business. And then SiS has a very strong presence with our Japanese OEMs.
It’s very interesting; they’re all great partners, but they all partner with us slightly differently. They all find their own space. Of course, they’re competing across the broad range of solutions, but each of them is focused on different areas. I think that richness of the eco-system, the fact that unlike Intel we’re not trying to lock everything into a single solution but are offering opportunities for four great companies to compete against each other in this way, is part of the success of the AMD platform. At any one given time, the truth of the matter is that you get a better set of features on an AMD chipset than you do on an Intel chipset because Intel simply doesn’t have enough competition driving innovation. Going forward, we want to continue to foster that kind of strong, open environment that really creates innovation.
We have been finding ways to partner closely with these four companies in such a way that there is a high level of integrity and quality of the platform. You know, we probably do this better today than we did five years ago. And it’s a bilateral effort. They recognize that we need to have a closer partnership, and we recognize that, and I think that the first generation of a new design philosophy between AMD and its partners is showing up in the AM2 socket implementation. And then when we continue to roll out new platforms, through the end of this year and into next year, you’ll see a closer, more symbiotic relationship with those partners.
Q: Back in the mid-1990s, AMD was perceived as very much the under-dog of the PC-processor world, lacking both the technology and execution of its "800-pound gorilla" opponent from Santa Clara. Things have clearly changed, and most observers see that as a healthy and welcome development. But what lies ahead? Will the day ever arrive when AMD can claim market parity or even superiority in the PC-microprocessor industry?
A: Well, you know this is an area of satisfaction for AMD, but I also want to leave you with the clear view that while we’re happy, while we’ve made progress, by no means do we think that it’s over. We realize there’s an 800-pound gorilla out there that at any opportunity is going to use that muscle to try to stifle competition.
We engaged in this break-free campaign a couple of years ago because frankly we believed that the industry was at a point where it was ready to side with AMD and change the dynamics. That’s a reflection of a stronger AMD, one that has more confidence in itself, and also an AMD that enjoys greater confidence on the part of its customers and partners. When you couple that with a couple of missteps and strategic mistakes by the competition, you suddenly have an entire industry realizing that things could actually change, that this could be a more balanced environment.
Intel won’t go away; Intel will remain. But I think together we can deliver a much more balanced environment in business. What makes AMDers work so hard is that for us, what we do every day is not just a job; it’s a mission. When you think about the relative size of this company, when you get up and go to work with the conviction that what you’re doing is not only right for your shareholders, for your family and for your co-workers, but is also right for the industry, that is what can give you the motivation to just go at it.
I think that’s what makes AMD very special, these days, this combination of good strategy, good execution and a passion for putting things right in this industry – there is nothing wrong in asking for a free and open competitive environment.
I think that the biggest problem Intel has is not the color of its logo or its byline but its culture. I think that Intel executives refusing to attend a meeting, for example, if AMD is on the menu, or on stage, is just simply pathetic, but it happens time and time again. I don’t think that a company that’s worth US$120 billion or more, that’s one of the top Fortune 500 companies, should ever condone that kind of behavior, and I don’t understand why Intel is not welcoming free and open competition, especially from a much smaller competitor.
For me, the definition of success is that not only are our customers happy with our solutions and end-users happy to buy our products, and our shareholders satisfied with our returns – for me and all the other AMDers around the world, success lies in achieving free and open competition, breaking the monopoly and making our industry a much healthier place to do business. That’s what gets me going every day.
This is Part V of a five-part interview. Part I appeared on 13 March, Part II on 14 March, Part III on 15 March and Part IV on 16 March.
Henri Richard, AMD executive vice president and chief officer for marketing and sales. “We clearly drove the industry to x86-64, and we increasingly drove the industry away from ever-increasing power envelopes.”
Photo: Andrea Liu, DigiTimes
Article edited by Chris Hall
