News AMD launches semi-custom processor division

I would assume having made this move that enough customers have expressed an interest in custom chips for AMD to consider this new division. It's a big risk to take if they don't have already have customers line-up.

 

You know, I completely forgot that both consoles will be on the market for the next 5- 10 years so that is a constant income for the new division. My brain doesn't wake up until the afternoon.

 

They're also releasing a version of the PS4 CPU/APU design without the Sony modifications for the PC market later this year.

 

People seem to be assuming that AMD are going to be raking in the profits from their deals with Sony And MS. Lets not forget that nVidia and AMD were both involved in the last generation of consoles and that led to nVidia pulling out this time around and AMD has lost money non stop while the current gen consoles have been on the market.
They will have spent fortunes on RnD and all the other costs associated with new CPUs, even if they are a derivative of their full APU processors. It's going to take some time before AMD sees profits, if any.

 

and

So from the snide comments in the article I should infer that this is a desperate strategy where AMD is grasping for revenue from any John who cruises past AMD's lamp-post?

But when Intel offer the EXACT SAME opportunity with their Atom cores, that is just customer-centric Intel offering their technology partners the solutions they need at a price they can't say no to, right?

Don't forget that Intel will love you long time Johnny! Guaranteed clean!

 

Too sensitive. Please quote where I accused you of being a shill? Also where I show I am an AMD fanboy? Or where I said AMD is in great financial shape? Three strawmen in a single reply.

I quoted two parts of your article that I believe are snide comments about AMD doing this because they are desperate for the cash. Hence the prostitution theme of my comment.

AMD may well be desperate for the cash, but it is a long bow to draw to link AMD's financial difficulties with this initiative. AMD has been moving towards this for years, they have been talking about this for years. They have now formalised it as a distinct business unit, and their first public customer (Sony), but it isn't anything new.

I commented that when AMD announces custom chips, here it is portrayed as a desperate grab for cash rather than exploring new markets for their products/technologies. I pointed out that Intel offers THE EXACT SAME THING and even lets customers make their customised Atoms at TSMC just like AMD, but because it is Intel they are just being more responsive and exploring new markets. Shockingly, no one has linked IOSF to Intel being desperate for cash. Perhaps Intel is on the game for MORE cash rather than SOME cash?

My problem isn't that I'm an offended AMD fanboy (I'm not BTW. CLI returns model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU L9600 @ 2.13GHz, but proves nothing), but that the article linked the news of the Semi-Custom Business Unit to AMD's financial position in a this, therefore that manner (post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy).
If you had offered journalistic commentary such as AMD may be hoping that this new market will help with AMD's financial woes, or that if successful it will help with AMD's bottom line, or any number of more neutral positions, I would have frowned at the unnecessary harping on at AMD's corporate balance sheet in an irrelevant manner, but I wouldn't have commented.

 

@Gareth

You seem to be taking a lot for granted and making massive assumptions. nVidia also provided parts for the current gen consoles and have pulled out specifically due to the lack of profits to be obtained due to tiny profit margins. AMD's costs won't just be written off, the contracts they have signed will be for set amounts and percentages and it will take as long as it takes for them to cover their costs and then for them to make any profits. This is a long term plan and is a missive gamble for AMD, While they may get a good return in years to come (maybe 5 years down the line) they will have to survive the current markets and trends until then. As you said yourself, other areas of the company have been losing large scale amounts and I am not sure they will be able to bridge the gap until they get a return on their console adventures, if there are any to be had in the end at all.

 

AMDs losses are getting worse not better, if you take away the sale of there headquarters they lost nearly $350mil in the last quater. They have nothing left to sell anymore so q2 could be a major bloodbath.

Intel is rumoured to want to buy them now. Monopoly board will not complain as AMD owns alot less of the consumer CPU market than even arm does now. ( rumours are of a 5-8 dollar / share offer according to the financial pages AMD share price is up on this news)

If they lose above 100mil dollars in q2 its over in all honesty ( they are 1 billion in debt with 1.1bil cash )

AMD are in this mess not because of consumer CPU or Gpu but they lost the server market badly they had 3 years ago around a 35% share of the server market now they have below 10%. With it there profits have gone and now they are fighting for survival. ( arm and IBM are pushing more into servers and with it AMDs server share has dropped even lower)

AMDs miricle is the ps4 and new Xbox that everyone is assuming will sell well, wii u has been a poor seller and you just wonder if the market that seems to have gone mobile with tablets will even buy either console in the numbers that people are hoping for.( wii u sales are bearly 5 million units at last check)

That's not even considering if Sony and ms are just licence the tech from AMD for there chips and making them thereselves none of this has really been considered.

Nvidia got 30-50mil a year for there work with Sony on the ps3 which is basically peanuts. Even if you quadruple that to 200mil a year for AMD ( having both cpus and both gpus)we are not talking the saving grace that the company would need to survive.

Not seen any conformation on the ps4 if its licence or not and the new Xbox is a total unknown till its made official. Difference between licence and actually making them is 4-5 times the cash.

 

If they do go and get themselves sold I see the company being split and sold with the GPU side going to Intel and the CPU/APU side going to nVidia as they would love to have that x86 licence.

 

expecting the wii u to sell extremely well is a stupid thing. most people on the wii are casual gamers and what they have with the wii is more than what they need, and the people who actually game are prettty much limited to monster hunter... and the "new" monster hunter title release for the u is basically just a texture modded monster hunter tri... i've seen it and aside from a few editing of attack animations(though the timing, and range didnt really change) there is only what has been happening on dolphin emulator for the past year. Anyway not really a huge market for that. XBOX will sell well as long as they have a halo title on it.

and actually amds losses have shown to be slowing(they did better than what was expected of the market last time) and they have been VERY reliable when it came to these apus. they used to have the crappiest drivers in the world but the drivers on apus have always been pretty top notch and improved very fast(with recent ones it is now apparently possible to crossfire with a 7750, presumably to prepare for the release of richland in june).

I cant deny amd has made its fair share(actually way way more than their fair share... in fact at many times i thought they allowed the runner ups of the special olympics to design their business plan as a consolation prize ) however they have been doing better, and the apu is a great processor in its own right once you overclock them, and the dual graphics are performing better than anyone ever thought.... and richland(not to mention kaveri) are supposed to improve that quite a bit. AMD isnt quite out of the hole they dug themselves into, but unless they royally f up they have a very good chance to make it out soon.

EDIT: just would like to say i love the classifications on this site.... "What's a Dremel?" XD

oh and the biggest advantage to the ps3/xbox/wii are testing for their architecture. their shared memory ideas are now going to be tested using(according to rumor here) both standard DDR3 and GDDR5, and i can gaurantee they will find out much more information during the development and testing of the consoles that will help them work out further improvements in the apus.