The following is a list that contains general information about GPUs and video cards made by AMD , including those made by ATI Technologies before 2006, based on official specifications in table-form.
91-427: The headers in the table listed below describe the following: Due to conventions changing over time, some numerical definitions such as core config, core clock, performance and memory should not be compared one-to-one across generations. The following tables are for reference use only, and do not reflect actual performance. The following table shows features of AMD / ATI 's GPUs . @165 HZ The following table shows
182-545: A 64-bit extension to the x86 instruction set (called x86-64 , AMD64, or x64), the incorporation of an on-chip memory controller, and the implementation of an extremely high-performance point-to-point interconnect called HyperTransport , as part of the Direct Connect Architecture . The technology was initially launched as the Opteron server-oriented processor on April 22, 2003. Shortly thereafter, it
273-613: A drum memory and a television monitor. In 1969, A. Michael Noll of Bell Labs implemented a scanned display with a frame buffer, using magnetic-core memory . Later on, the Bell Labs system was expanded to display an image with a color depth of three bits on a standard color TV monitor. In the early 1970s, the development of MOS memory ( metal–oxide–semiconductor memory) integrated-circuit chips, particularly high-density DRAM (dynamic random-access memory ) chips with at least 1 kb memory, made it practical to create, for
364-434: A graphics library such as OpenGL or Direct3D which interfaces with the graphics driver to translate received commands to instructions for the accelerator's graphics processing unit (GPU). The GPU uses those instructions to compute the rasterized results and the results are bit blitted to the framebuffer. The framebuffer's signal is then produced in combination with built-in video overlay devices (usually used to produce
455-468: A boon for graphics researchers who did not have the resources to build their own framebuffer. The New York Institute of Technology would later create the first 24-bit color system using three of the Evans & Sutherland framebuffers. Each framebuffer was connected to an RGB color output (one for red, one for green and one for blue), with a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP 11/04 minicomputer controlling
546-524: A contract with Intel , becoming a licensed second-source manufacturer of 8086 and 8088 processors. IBM wanted to use the Intel 8088 in its IBM PC , but its policy at the time was to require at least two sources for its chips. AMD later produced the Am286 under the same arrangement. In 1984, Intel internally decided to no longer cooperate with AMD in supplying product information to shore up its advantage in
637-494: A fast, cost-effective processor. Finally, in an agreement effective 1996, AMD received the rights to the microcode in Intel's x386 and x486 processor families, but not the rights to the microcode in the following generations of processors. AMD's first in-house x86 processor was the K5 , launched in 1996. The "K" in its name was a reference to Kryptonite , the only substance known to harm comic book character Superman . This itself
728-424: A higher quality than on home computers. Framebuffers used in personal and home computing often had sets of defined modes under which the framebuffer can operate. These modes reconfigure the hardware to output different resolutions, color depths, memory layouts and refresh rate timings. In the world of Unix machines and operating systems, such conveniences were usually eschewed in favor of directly manipulating
819-710: A joint venture with Siemens , a German engineering conglomerate wishing to enhance its technology expertise and enter the American market. Siemens purchased 20% of AMD's stock, giving the company an infusion of cash to increase its product lines. The two companies also jointly established Advanced Micro Computers (AMC), located in Silicon Valley and in Germany, allowing AMD to enter the microcomputer development and manufacturing field, in particular based on AMD's second-source Zilog Z8000 microprocessors. When
910-459: A large, successful flash memory business, even during the dotcom bust . In 2003, to divest some manufacturing and aid its overall cash flow, which was under duress from aggressive microprocessor competition from Intel, AMD spun off its flash memory business and manufacturing into Spansion , a joint venture with Fujitsu , which had been co-manufacturing flash memory with AMD since 1993. In December 2005, AMD divested itself of Spansion to focus on
1001-413: A new socket G34 for dual and quad-socket processors and thus will be marketed as Opteron 61xx series processors. Lisbon uses socket C32 certified for dual-socket use or single socket use only and thus will be marketed as Opteron 41xx processors. Both will be built on a 45 nm SOI process. Following AMD's 2006 acquisition of Canadian graphics company ATI Technologies , an initiative codenamed Fusion
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#17327980571411092-526: A new native socket AM3 , while maintaining backward compatibility with AM2+ , the socket used for the Phenom, and allowing the use of the DDR2 memory that was used with the platform. In April 2010, AMD released a new Phenom II Hexa-core (6-core) processor codenamed " Thuban ". This was a totally new die based on the hexa-core "Istanbul" Opteron processor. It included AMD's "turbo core" technology, which allows
1183-411: A rectangle of swatches): In some designs it was also possible to write data to the lookup table (or switch between existing palettes) on the fly, allowing dividing the picture into horizontal bars with their own palette and thus render an image that had a far wider palette. For example, viewing an outdoor shot photograph, the picture could be divided into four bars, the top one with emphasis on sky tones,
1274-424: A technique known generally as double buffering or more specifically as page flipping , the framebuffer uses half of its memory to display the current frame. While that memory is being displayed, the other half of memory is filled with data for the next frame. Once the secondary buffer is filled, the framebuffer is instructed to display the secondary buffer instead. The primary buffer becomes the secondary buffer, and
1365-651: Is a hardware and fabless company that designs and develops central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), system-on-chip (SoC), and high-performance compute solutions. AMD serves a wide range of business and consumer markets, including gaming, data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), and embedded systems. AMD's main products include microprocessors , motherboard chipsets , embedded processors , and graphics processors for servers , workstations , personal computers, and embedded system applications. The company has also expanded into new markets, such as
1456-510: Is implemented. The clock frequencies listed here refer to the officially announced clock specifications. The sideport is a dedicated memory bus. It is preferably used for a frame buffer . PCIe 256 Pixel shaders : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5
1547-546: Is implemented. The clock frequencies listed here refer to the officially announced clock specifications. The sideport is a dedicated memory bus. It preferably used for frame buffer . Advanced Micro Devices Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ( AMD ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas . AMD
1638-447: Is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory. The TDP is reference design TDP values from AMD. Different non-reference board designs from vendors may lead to slight variations in actual TDP. All models feature UVD2 and PowerPlay . Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units The clock frequencies may vary in different usage scenarios, as ATI PowerPlay technology
1729-410: Is sometimes used to retain information about pixel transparency. The total amount of memory required for the framebuffer depends on the resolution of the output signal, and on the color depth or palette size. Computer researchers had long discussed the theoretical advantages of a framebuffer but were unable to produce a machine with sufficient memory at an economically practicable cost. In 1947,
1820-407: Is that a full range of colors cannot be produced. The solution to this problem was indexed color , which adds a lookup table to the framebuffer. Each color stored in framebuffer memory acts as a color index. The lookup table serves as a palette with a limited number of different colors, while the rest is used as an index table. Here is a typical indexed 256-color image and its own palette (shown as
1911-596: The AMD 700 chipset series . The Phenom II came in dual-core, triple-core and quad-core variants, all using the same die, with cores disabled for the triple-core and dual-core versions. The Phenom II resolved issues that the original Phenom had, including a low clock speed, a small L3 cache, and a Cool'n'Quiet bug that decreased performance. The Phenom II cost less but was not performance-competitive with Intel's mid-to-high-range Core 2 Quads. The Phenom II also enhanced its predecessor's memory controller, allowing it to use DDR3 in
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#17327980571412002-658: The Am386 , its clone of the Intel 386 processor. By October of the same year it had sold one million units. In 1993, AMD introduced the first of the Am486 family of processors, which proved popular with a large number of original equipment manufacturers , including Compaq , which signed an exclusive agreement using the Am486. The Am5x86 , another Am486-based processor, was released in November 1995, and continued AMD's success as
2093-559: The DRAM market, and made some headway into the CMOS market, which it had lagged in entering, having focused instead on bipolar chips. AMD had some success in the mid-1980s with the AMD7910 and AMD7911 "World Chip" FSK modem, one of the first multi-standard devices that covered both Bell and CCITT tones at up to 1200 baud half duplex or 300/300 full duplex. Beginning in 1986, AMD embraced
2184-526: The Excavator microarchitecture replaced Piledriver. Expected to be the last microarchitecture of the Bulldozer series, Excavator focused on improved power efficiency. Framebuffer A framebuffer ( frame buffer , or sometimes framestore ) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all
2275-621: The Manchester Baby computer used a Williams tube , later the Williams-Kilburn tube, to store 1024 bits on a cathode-ray tube (CRT) memory and displayed on a second CRT. Other research labs were exploring these techniques with MIT Lincoln Laboratory achieving a 4096 display in 1950. A color scanned display was implemented in the late 1960s, called the Brookhaven RAster Display (BRAD), which used
2366-512: The Supreme Court of California sided with the arbitrator and AMD. In 1990, Intel countersued AMD, renegotiating AMD's right to use derivatives of Intel's microcode for its cloned processors. In the face of uncertainty during the legal dispute, AMD was forced to develop clean room designed versions of Intel code for its x386 and x486 processors, the former long after Intel had released its own x386 in 1985. In March 1991, AMD released
2457-466: The data center , gaming , and high-performance computing markets. AMD's processors are used in a wide range of computing devices, including personal computers , servers, laptops , and gaming consoles . While it initially manufactured its own processors, the company later outsourced its manufacturing , after GlobalFoundries was spun off in 2009. Through its Xilinx acquisition in 2022, AMD offers field-programmable gate array (FPGA) products. AMD
2548-433: The pixels in a complete video frame . Modern video cards contain framebuffer circuitry in their cores. This circuitry converts an in-memory bitmap into a video signal that can be displayed on a computer monitor. In computing , a screen buffer is a part of computer memory used by a computer application for the representation of the content to be shown on the computer display . The screen buffer may also be called
2639-488: The video buffer , the regeneration buffer , or regen buffer for short. Screen buffers should be distinguished from video memory . To this end, the term off-screen buffer is also used. The information in the buffer typically consists of color values for every pixel to be shown on the display. Color values are commonly stored in 1-bit binary (monochrome), 4-bit palettized , 8-bit palettized, 16-bit high color and 24-bit true color formats. An additional alpha channel
2730-409: The 1980s. SGI , Sun Microsystems , HP , DEC and IBM all released framebuffers for their workstation computers in this period. These framebuffers were usually of a much higher quality than could be found in most home computers, and were regularly used in television, printing, computer modeling and 3D graphics. Framebuffers were also used by Sega for its high-end arcade boards , which were also of
2821-708: The 9800 SE when unlocked to 8-pixel pipelines with third party driver modifications should function close to a full 9800 Pro. 4 64 Pixel shaders : Vertex Shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units 12.8 system Pixel shaders : Vertex Shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units Pixel shaders : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units 9.6 GDDR3 128 Pixel shaders : Vertex Shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units Note that ATI X1000 series cards (e.g. X1900) do not have Vertex Texture Fetch, hence they do not fully comply with
List of AMD graphics processing units - Misplaced Pages Continue
2912-465: The A4 utilizing the base Radeon HD chip and the rest using a Radeon R4 graphics card, with the exception of the highest-model A10 (A10-7300) which uses an R6 graphics card. Bulldozer was AMD's microarchitecture codename for server and desktop AMD FX processors, first released on October 12, 2011. This family 15h microarchitecture is the successor to the family 10h (K10) microarchitecture design. Bulldozer
3003-527: The AMD brand name. In October 2008, AMD announced plans to spin off manufacturing operations in the form of GlobalFoundries Inc. , a multibillion-dollar joint venture with Advanced Technology Investment Co. , an investment company formed by the government of Abu Dhabi . The partnership and spin-off gave AMD an infusion of cash and allowed it to focus solely on chip design. To assure the Abu Dhabi investors of
3094-726: The Am2501 logic counter, which was highly successful. Its bestselling product in 1971 was the Am2505, the fastest multiplier available. In 1971, AMD entered the RAM chip market, beginning with the Am3101, a 64-bit bipolar RAM. That year AMD also greatly increased the sales volume of its linear integrated circuits, and by year-end the company's total annual sales reached US$ 4.6 million. AMD went public in September 1972. The company
3185-489: The LCD must digitally sample the display signal (thereby emulating an electron beam), any signal that is out of range cannot be physically displayed on the monitor. Framebuffers have traditionally supported a wide variety of color modes. Due to the expense of memory, most early framebuffers used 1-bit (2 colors per pixel), 2-bit (4 colors), 4-bit (16 colors) or 8-bit (256 colors) color depths. The problem with such small color depths
3276-555: The Llano. More AMD APUs for laptops running Windows 7 and Windows 8 OS are being used commonly. These include AMD's price-point APUs, the E1 and E2, and their mainstream competitors with Intel's Core i -series: The Vision A- series, the A standing for accelerated. These range from the lower-performance A4 chipset to the A6, A8, and A10. These all incorporate next-generation Radeon graphics cards, with
3367-514: The Spider at 65nm , which was uncompetitive with Intel's smaller and more power-efficient 45nm . In January 2009, AMD released a new processor line dubbed Phenom II , a refresh of the original Phenom built using the 45 nm process. AMD's new platform, codenamed " Dragon ", used the new Phenom II processor, and an ATI R770 GPU from the R700 GPU family, as well as a 790 GX/FX chipset from
3458-529: The United States. AMD rode out the mid-1980s crisis by aggressively innovating and modernizing, devising the Liberty Chip program of designing and manufacturing one new chip or chipset per week for 52 weeks in fiscal year 1986, and by heavily lobbying the U.S. government until sanctions and restrictions were put in place to prevent predatory Japanese pricing. During this time, AMD withdrew from
3549-485: The VS 3.0 model. Instead, they offer a feature called "Render to Vertex Buffer (R2VB)" that provides functionality that is an alternative Vertex Texture Fetch. Pixel shaders : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units The clock frequencies may vary in different usage scenarios, as AMD PowerPlay technology
3640-573: The X Virtual Framebuffer ( Xvfb ). Xvfb was added to the X Window System distribution to provide a method for running X without a graphical framebuffer. The Linux framebuffer device was developed to abstract the physical method for accessing the underlying framebuffer into a guaranteed memory map that is easy for programs to access. This increases portability, as programs are not required to deal with systems that have disjointed memory maps or require bank switching . A frame buffer may be designed with enough memory to store two frames worth of video data. In
3731-554: The brand name Athlon on June 23, 1999. Unlike previous AMD processors, it could not be used on the same motherboards as Intel's, due to licensing issues surrounding Intel's Slot 1 connector, and instead used a Slot A connector, referenced to the Alpha processor bus. The Duron was a lower-cost and limited version of the Athlon (64 KB instead of 256 KB L2 cache) in a 462-pin socketed PGA (socket A) or soldered directly onto
List of AMD graphics processing units - Misplaced Pages Continue
3822-545: The company already had overseas assembly facilities in Penang and Manila , and began construction on a fabrication plant in San Antonio in 1981. In 1980, AMD began supplying semiconductor products for telecommunications, an industry undergoing rapid expansion and innovation. Intel had introduced the first x86 microprocessors in 1978. In 1981, IBM created its PC , and wanted Intel's x86 processors, but only under
3913-516: The condition that Intel would also provide a second-source manufacturer for its patented x86 microprocessors. Intel and AMD entered into a 10-year technology exchange agreement, first signed in October 1981 and formally executed in February 1982. The terms of the agreement were that each company could acquire the right to become a second-source manufacturer of semiconductor products developed by
4004-467: The cross-licensing agreement would be effectively canceled. Beginning in 1982, AMD began volume-producing second-source Intel-licensed 8086, 8088, 80186, and 80188 processors, and by 1984, its own Am286 clone of Intel's 80286 processor, for the rapidly growing market of IBM PCs and IBM clones . It also continued its successful concentration on proprietary bipolar chips. The company continued to spend greatly on research and development, and created
4095-476: The early computer industry since unreliability in microchips was a distinct problem that customers – including computer manufacturers , the telecommunications industry , and instrument manufacturers – wanted to avoid. In November 1969, the company manufactured its first product: the Am9300, a 4-bit MSI shift register , which began selling in 1970. Also in 1970, AMD produced its first proprietary product,
4186-652: The end of 2014. After the GlobalFoundries spin-off and subsequent layoffs, AMD was left with significant vacant space at 1 AMD Place, its aging Sunnyvale headquarters office complex. In August 2016, AMD's 47 years in Sunnyvale came to a close when it signed a lease with the Irvine Company for a new 220,000 sq. ft. headquarters building in Santa Clara. AMD's new location at Santa Clara Square faces
4277-472: The face of declining sales revenue. The inclusion of AMD chips into the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were later seen as saving AMD from bankruptcy. AMD acquired the low-power server manufacturer SeaMicro in early 2012, with an eye to bringing out an Arm64 server chip. On October 8, 2014, AMD announced that Rory Read had stepped down after three years as president and chief executive officer. He
4368-452: The first server Opteron K10 processors, followed in November by the Phenom processor for desktop. K10 processors came in dual-core, triple-core , and quad-core versions, with all cores on a single die. AMD released a new platform codenamed " Spider ", which used the new Phenom processor, as well as an R770 GPU and a 790 GX/FX chipset from the AMD 700 chipset series . However, AMD built
4459-579: The first time, a digital memory system with framebuffers capable of holding a standard video image. This led to the development of the SuperPaint system by Richard Shoup at Xerox PARC in 1972. Shoup was able to use the SuperPaint framebuffer to create an early digital video-capture system. By synchronizing the output signal to the input signal, Shoup was able to overwrite each pixel of data as it shifted in. Shoup also experimented with modifying
4550-646: The footsteps of Robert Noyce (developer of the first silicon integrated circuit at Fairchild in 1959) and Gordon Moore , who together founded the semiconductor company Intel in July 1968. In September 1969, AMD moved from its temporary location in Santa Clara to Sunnyvale, California . To immediately secure a customer base, AMD initially became a second source supplier of microchips designed by Fairchild and National Semiconductor . AMD first focused on producing logic chips. The company guaranteed quality control to United States Military Standard , an advantage in
4641-444: The framebuffer during the scan, creating a set of discrete picture elements, i.e. pixels. Framebuffers differ significantly from the vector displays that were common prior to the advent of raster graphics (and, consequently, to the concept of a framebuffer). With a vector display, only the vertices of the graphics primitives are stored. The electron beam of the output display is then commanded to move from vertex to vertex, tracing
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#17327980571414732-561: The framebuffer. This is commonly called graphics acceleration . Common graphics drawing commands (many of them geometric) are sent to the graphics accelerator in their raw form. The accelerator then rasterizes the results of the command to the framebuffer. This method frees the CPU to do other work. Early accelerators focused on improving the performance of 2D GUI systems. While retaining these 2D capabilities, most modern accelerators focus on producing 3D imagery in real time. A common design uses
4823-1212: The graphics and compute APIs support across ATI/AMD GPU microarchitectures. Note that a branding series might include older generation chips. 1.3 (GCN 4) Pixel pipelines : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units OpenGL 1.0 (Generic 2D) is provided through software implementations. Pixel pipelines : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units First number indicates cards with 32 MB of memory. Second number indicates cards with 64 MB of memory. First number indicates OEM cards. Second number indicates Retail cards. Pixel pipelines : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units 250 250 4.0 64 Pixel shaders : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units Pixel shaders : Vertex shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units 17.28 256 350 (256 MB) 256 22.40 GDDR2 380 340 1520 1520 1520 380 256 21.76 256 Pixel shaders : Vertex Shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units The 256-bit version of
4914-477: The hardware settings. This manipulation was far more flexible in that any resolution, color depth and refresh rate was attainable – limited only by the memory available to the framebuffer. An unfortunate side-effect of this method was that the display device could be driven beyond its capabilities. In some cases, this resulted in hardware damage to the display. More commonly, it simply produced garbled and unusable output. Modern CRT monitors fix this problem through
5005-613: The headquarters of archrival Intel across the Bayshore Freeway and San Tomas Aquino Creek . Around the same time, AMD also agreed to sell 1 AMD Place to the Irvine Company. In April 2019, the Irvine Company secured approval from the Sunnyvale City Council of its plans to demolish 1 AMD Place and redevelop the entire 32-acre site into townhomes and apartments. In October 2020, AMD announced that it
5096-472: The home computers of the late 1970s to contain low-color-depth framebuffers. Today, nearly all computers with graphical capabilities utilize a framebuffer for generating the video signal. Amiga computers, created in the 1980s, featured special design attention to graphics performance and included a unique Hold-And-Modify framebuffer capable of displaying 4096 colors. Framebuffers also became popular in high-end workstations and arcade system boards throughout
5187-459: The introduction of protection circuitry. When the display mode is changed, the monitor attempts to obtain a signal lock on the new refresh frequency. If the monitor is unable to obtain a signal lock, or if the signal is outside the range of its design limitations, the monitor will ignore the framebuffer signal and possibly present the user with an error message. LCD monitors tend to contain similar protection circuitry, but for different reasons. Since
5278-412: The market for graphics accelerators for x86-based systems is dominated by Nvidia (acquired 3dfx in 2002), AMD (who acquired ATI in 2006), and Intel . With a framebuffer, the electron beam (if the display technology uses one) is commanded to perform a raster scan , the way a television renders a broadcast signal. The color information for each point thus displayed on the screen is pulled directly from
5369-459: The marketplace, and delayed and eventually refused to convey the technical details of the Intel 80386 . In 1987, AMD invoked arbitration over the issue, and Intel reacted by canceling the 1982 technological-exchange agreement altogether. After three years of testimony, AMD eventually won in arbitration in 1992, but Intel disputed this decision. Another long legal dispute followed, ending in 1994 when
5460-484: The methods used to access memory. Some of the most common are: The framebuffer organization may be packed pixel or planar . The framebuffer may be all points addressable or have restrictions on how it can be updated. Video cards always have a certain amount of RAM. A small portion of this RAM is where the bitmap of image data is "buffered" for display. The term frame buffer is thus often used interchangeably when referring to this RAM. The CPU sends image updates to
5551-508: The microarchitecture, and a shift of the target market from mainstream desktop systems to value dual-core desktop systems. In 2008, AMD started to release dual-core Sempron processors exclusively in China, branded as the Sempron 2000 series, with lower HyperTransport speed and smaller L2 cache. AMD completed its dual-core product portfolio for each market segment. In September 2007, AMD released
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#17327980571415642-535: The microprocessor market with the Am9080 , a reverse-engineered clone of the Intel 8080 , and the Am2900 bit-slice microprocessor family. When Intel began installing microcode in its microprocessors in 1976, it entered into a cross-licensing agreement with AMD, which was granted a copyright license to the microcode in its microprocessors and peripherals, effective October 1976. In 1977, AMD entered into
5733-558: The microprocessor market, and Spansion went public in an IPO. On July 24, 2006, AMD announced its acquisition of the Canadian 3D graphics card company ATI Technologies . AMD paid $ 4.3 billion and 58 million shares of its capital stock , for approximately $ 5.4 billion. The transaction was completed on October 25, 2006. On August 30, 2010, AMD announced that it would retire the ATI brand name for its graphics chipsets in favor of
5824-573: The motherboard. Sempron was released as a lower-cost Athlon XP, replacing Duron in the socket A PGA era. It has since been migrated upward to all new sockets, up to AM3 . On October 9, 2001, the Athlon XP was released. On February 10, 2003, the Athlon XP with 512 KB L2 Cache was released. The K8 was a major revision of the K7 architecture, with the most notable features being the addition of
5915-581: The mouse cursor without modifying the framebuffer's data) and any final special effects that are produced by modifying the output signal. An example of such final special effects was the spatial anti-aliasing technique used by the 3dfx Voodoo cards. These cards add a slight blur to the output signal that makes aliasing of the rasterized graphics much less obvious. At one time there were many manufacturers of graphics accelerators, including: 3dfx Interactive ; ATI ; Hercules ; Trident ; Nvidia ; Radius ; S3 Graphics ; SiS and Silicon Graphics . As of 2015
6006-644: The new Bulldozer products were slower than the K10 models they were built to replace. The Piledriver microarchitecture was the 2012 successor to Bulldozer, increasing clock speeds and performance relative to its predecessor. Piledriver would be released in AMD FX, APU, and Opteron product lines. Piledriver was subsequently followed by the Steamroller microarchitecture in 2013. Used exclusively in AMD's APUs, Steamroller focused on greater parallelism. In 2015,
6097-711: The new venture's success, AMD's CEO Hector Ruiz stepped down in July 2008, while remaining executive chairman, in preparation for becoming chairman of GlobalFoundries in March 2009. President and COO Dirk Meyer became AMD's CEO. Recessionary losses necessitated AMD cutting 1,100 jobs in 2009. In August 2011, AMD announced that former Lenovo executive Rory Read would be joining the company as CEO, replacing Meyer. In November 2011, AMD announced plans to lay off more than 10% (1,400) of its employees from across all divisions worldwide. In October 2012, it announced plans to lay off an additional 15% of its workforce to reduce costs in
6188-402: The next with foliage tones, the next with skin and clothing tones, and the bottom one with ground colors. This required each palette to have overlapping colors, but carefully done, allowed great flexibility. While framebuffers are commonly accessed via a memory mapping directly to the CPU memory space, this is not the only method by which they may be accessed. Framebuffers have varied widely in
6279-461: The other; that is, each party could "earn" the right to manufacture and sell a product developed by the other, if agreed to, by exchanging the manufacturing rights to a product of equivalent technical complexity. The technical information and licenses needed to make and sell a part would be exchanged for a royalty to the developing company. The 1982 agreement also extended the 1976 AMD–Intel cross-licensing agreement through 1995. The agreement included
6370-536: The output signal using color tables. These color tables allowed the SuperPaint system to produce a wide variety of colors outside the range of the limited 8-bit data it contained. This scheme would later become commonplace in computer framebuffers. In 1974, Evans & Sutherland released the first commercial framebuffer, the Picture System, costing about $ 15,000. It was capable of producing resolutions of up to 512 by 512 pixels in 8-bit grayscale , and became
6461-436: The perceived shift toward RISC with their own AMD Am29000 (29k) processor; the 29k survived as an embedded processor . The company also increased its EPROM memory market share in the late 1980s. Throughout the 1980s, AMD was a second-source supplier of Intel x86 processors. In 1991, it introduced its 386-compatible Am386 , an AMD-designed chip. Creating its own chips, AMD began to compete directly with Intel. AMD had
6552-525: The processor to automatically switch from 6 cores to 3 faster cores when more pure speed is needed. The Magny Cours and Lisbon server parts were released in 2010. The Magny Cours part came in 8 to 12 cores and the Lisbon part in 4 and 6 core parts. Magny Cours is focused on performance while the Lisbon part is focused on high performance per watt. Magny Cours is an MCM ( multi-chip module ) with two hexa-core "Istanbul" Opteron parts. This will use
6643-425: The right to invoke arbitration of disagreements, and after five years the right of either party to end the agreement with one year's notice. The main result of the 1982 agreement was that AMD became a second-source manufacturer of Intel's x86 microprocessors and related chips, and Intel provided AMD with database tapes for its 8086 , 80186 , and 80286 chips. However, in the event of a bankruptcy or takeover of AMD,
6734-596: The rights to their Nx series of x86-compatible processors. AMD gave the NexGen design team their own building, left them alone, and gave them time and money to rework the Nx686. The result was the K6 processor, introduced in 1997. Although it was based on Socket 7 , variants such as K6-III /450 were faster than Intel's Pentium II (sixth-generation processor). The K7 was AMD's seventh-generation x86 processor, making its debut under
6825-416: The secondary buffer becomes the primary. This switch is often done after the vertical blanking interval to avoid screen tearing where half the old frame and half the new frame is shown together. Page flipping has become a standard technique used by PC game programmers . As the demand for better graphics increased, hardware manufacturers created a way to decrease the amount of CPU time required to fill
6916-529: The success of its Athlon and Opteron processors. However, the company faced challenges in the late 2000s and early 2010s, as it struggled to keep up with Intel in the race to produce faster and more powerful processors. In the late 2010s, AMD regained market share by pursuing a penetration pricing strategy and building on the success of its Ryzen processors, which were considerably more competitive with Intel microprocessors in terms of performance while offering attractive pricing. Advanced Micro Devices
7007-651: The three devices as one. In 1975, the UK company Quantel produced the first commercial full-color broadcast framebuffer, the Quantel DFS 3000. It was first used in TV coverage of the 1976 Montreal Olympics to generate a picture-in-picture inset of the Olympic flaming torch while the rest of the picture featured the runner entering the stadium. The rapid improvement of integrated-circuit technology made it possible for many of
7098-558: The two companies' vision for Advanced Micro Computers diverged, AMD bought out Siemens' stake in the American division in 1979. AMD closed Advanced Micro Computers in late 1981 after switching focus to manufacturing second-source Intel x86 microprocessors. Total sales in fiscal year 1978 topped $ 100 million, and in 1979, AMD debuted on the New York Stock Exchange . In 1979, production also began on AMD's new semiconductor fabrication plant in Austin, Texas ;
7189-521: The video card. The video processor on the card forms a picture of the screen image and stores it in the frame buffer as a large bitmap in RAM. The bitmap in RAM is used by the card to continually refresh the screen image. Many systems attempt to emulate the function of a framebuffer device, often for reasons of compatibility. The two most common virtual framebuffers are the Linux framebuffer device (fbdev) and
7280-509: The world's first 512K EPROM in 1984. That year, AMD was listed in the book The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America , and later made the Fortune 500 list for the first time in 1985. By mid-1985, the microchip market experienced a severe downturn, mainly due to long-term aggressive trade practices ( dumping ) from Japan, but also due to a crowded and non-innovative chip market in
7371-436: Was a clean-sheet design, not a development of earlier processors. The core was specifically aimed at 10–125 W TDP computing products. AMD claimed dramatic performance-per-watt efficiency improvements in high-performance computing (HPC) applications with Bulldozer cores. While hopes were high that Bulldozer would bring AMD to be performance-competitive with Intel once more, most benchmarks were disappointing. In some cases
7462-425: Was a reference to Intel's hegemony over the market, i.e., an anthropomorphization of them as Superman. The number "5" was a reference to the fifth generation of x86 processors; rival Intel had previously introduced its line of fifth-generation x86 processors as Pentium because the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office had ruled that mere numbers could not be trademarked. In 1996, AMD purchased NexGen , specifically for
7553-511: Was a second source for Intel MOS / LSI circuits by 1973, with products such as Am14/1506 and Am14/1507, dual 100-bit dynamic shift registers. By 1975, AMD was producing 212 products – of which 49 were proprietary, including the Am9102 (a static N-channel 1024-bit RAM) and three low-power Schottky MSI circuits: Am25LS07, Am25LS08, and Am25LS09. Intel had created the first microprocessor , its 4-bit 4004 , in 1971. By 1975, AMD entered
7644-433: Was acquiring Xilinx , one of the market leaders in field programmable gate arrays and complex programmable logic devices (FPGAs and CPLDs) in an all-stock transaction. The acquisition was completed in February 2022, with an estimated acquisition price of $ 50 billion. In October 2023, AMD acquired an open-source AI software provider, Nod.ai, to bolster its AI software ecosystem. In January 2024, AMD announced it
7735-535: Was announced to integrate a CPU and GPU together on some of AMD's microprocessors, including a built in PCI Express link to accommodate separate PCI Express peripherals, eliminating the northbridge chip from the motherboard. The initiative intended to move some of the processing originally done on the CPU (e.g. floating-point unit operations) to the GPU, which is better optimized for some calculations. The Fusion
7826-530: Was discontinuing the production of all complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) acquired through Xilinx. In March 2024, a rally in semiconductor stocks pushed AMD's valuation above $ 300B for the first time. In July 2024 AMD announced that it would acquire the Finnish-based artificial intelligence startup company Silo AI in a $ 665 million all-cash deal in an attempt to better compete with AI chip market leader Nvidia . In February 1982, AMD signed
7917-431: Was formally incorporated by Jerry Sanders , along with seven of his colleagues from Fairchild Semiconductor , on May 1, 1969. Sanders, an electrical engineer who was the director of marketing at Fairchild, had, like many Fairchild executives, grown frustrated with the increasing lack of support, opportunity, and flexibility within the company. He later decided to leave to start his own semiconductor company, following
8008-456: Was founded in 1969 by Jerry Sanders and a group of other technology professionals. The company's early products were primarily memory chips and other components for computers. In 1975, AMD entered the microprocessor market, competing with Intel , its main rival in the industry. In the early 2000s, it experienced significant growth and success, thanks in part to its strong position in the PC market and
8099-534: Was incorporated into a product for desktop PCs, branded Athlon 64 . On April 21, 2005, AMD released the first dual-core Opteron , an x86-based server CPU. A month later, it released the Athlon 64 X2 , the first desktop-based dual-core processor family. In May 2007, AMD abandoned the string "64" in its dual-core desktop product branding, becoming Athlon X2, downplaying the significance of 64-bit computing in its processors. Further updates involved improvements to
8190-575: Was later renamed the AMD APU (Accelerated Processing Unit). Llano was AMD's first APU built for laptops. Llano was the second APU released, targeted at the mainstream market. It incorporated a CPU and GPU on the same die, as well as northbridge functions, and used " Socket FM1 " with DDR3 memory. The CPU part of the processor was based on the Phenom II "Deneb" processor. AMD suffered an unexpected decrease in revenue based on production problems for
8281-706: Was succeeded by Lisa Su , a key lieutenant who had been chief operating officer since June. On October 16, 2014, AMD announced a new restructuring plan along with its Q3 results. Effective July 1, 2014, AMD reorganized into two business groups: Computing and Graphics, which primarily includes desktop and notebook processors and chipsets, discrete GPUs, and professional graphics; and Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom, which primarily includes server and embedded processors, dense servers, semi-custom SoC products (including solutions for gaming consoles ), engineering services, and royalties. As part of this restructuring, AMD announced that 7% of its global workforce would be laid off by
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