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Timeline of AMD Processors

As discussed in my previous article about AMD History, its beginning before the making of microprocessor.

In this article I will be telling you what phases went by after AMD was born.

It was in 1969 just a year after Intel, Amd was born. Jerry sanders the worldwide sales manager at Fairchild Semiconductor laid the foundation of AMD with his team of seven.

In the September of 1969, AMD moved from its temporary location in Santa Clara to Sunnyvale, California. Initially AMD started to supply microchips, designed by Fairchild and National semiconductor. At first AMD focused on producing logic chips, where the company guaranteed quality control to United States Standard. Many computer manufacturers, telecommunication industry and instrument manufactures wanted reliability in microchips.

In the month of November 1969, AMD manufactured its first product, the Am9300. It was a 4-bit MSI shift register and started selling in 1970. In the same year AMD produced its first proprietary product, the Am2501 logic counter, which became very successful.

AMD bestselling product in 1971 was the Am2505, the fastest multiplier. In the same year AMD entered into the RAM market with the Am3101 (a 64-bit bipolar RAM).

In 1972 AMD went public, becoming a second source of the Intel MOS/LSI circuits with its products such as Am14/1506 and Am14/1507.

AM9080 and AM2900

By 1975 AMD had over 212 products which were being produced by the company. By the 212 products 49 were proprietary like the Am9102, while three low power schottky MSI circuits.

  • Am25LS07
  • Am25lS08
  • Am25LS09

In the same year AMD entered into the microprocessor market with a reverse engineered clone of the Intel processor Intel 8080, called Am9080. It also created the AM2900 which was not a processor rather a series of component to build a 4-bit modular processor. Soon in 1976 AMD Was granted a copyright license to microcode in its processor by Intel.

In 1977 AMD entered into a joint venture with Siemens, where Siemens bought 20 percent of AMD share, thereby giving AMD a cash flow to increase its product lines. AMC (Advanced micro Computers) was established in Silicon Valley and Germany. After they parted ways AMD bought Siemens’ stake in the US division in 1979.

Throughout the 1980s AMD produced a line of 32-bit RISC processor called the AM2900 series. It was designed using a variety of Berkeley RISE architecture. Eventually it discontinued it to focus on the x86 processor.

In the mid of 1980 AMD had some success with the AMD 7910 and AMD 7911 “World chip”.

The Technology Exchange Agreement with Intel

This story starts with International Business Machines, the IBM, which had a share of 62 percent in the mainframe computer.

IBM entered the minicomputer market lately, as a result many new rivals such as Digital Equipment Cooperation the DEC and others earned billions. This time IBM did not wanted to repeat the mistake with personal computers.

In the late 1970s this market was hugely dominated by

  • Commodore PET
  • Atari 8-bit family
  • Apple II series
  • Tandy Corporation’s TRS-80, And many others.

A single IBM computer in 1960 would cost about $1million, whereas some successful company revenue would be $12million. In1980 the least expensive IBM computer would cost $13500 and was only sold through sales force.

In 1981 IBM created its PC and wanted Intel’s x86 processors, but under a condition that Intel will have to provide a second-source manufacturer for its patented x86 microprocessors.

After that Intl and AMD entered into a 10 year technology agreement, signed in October 1981 and formally executed in 1982. The same year AMD started manufacturing huge volume of Intel’s

  • 8086
  • 8088
  • 80186
  • 80188 processors

About Intel’s 8086 clone

Release Date 1982
Architecture 16-bit
Data Bus 16-bit
Address Bus 20-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 MB
L1 Cache None
L2 Cache None
Frequency 4 – 10 MHz
FSB 4 – 10 MHz
FPU 8087
SIMD None
Fab 3000 nm
Transistor Count 29,000
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage 5V
Die Area 33 mm2
Socket 40 pins

In 1983 AMD introduced INT.STD.1000 the highest manufacturing quality standard in the industry. In 1984 AMD established its clone of the Intel’s 80286 processor. In the same year it created the world’s first 512k EPROM.AMD second x86 processor was the Am286, which was a licensed clone of the Intel’s 80826. The advantage over Intel’s 80826 was that Am286 had higher clock speed. Intel capped with 12.5 MHz while pushed it a little further to 20MHz.

AMD AM286

Release Date 1983
Architecture 16-bit
Data Bus 16-bit
Address Bus 24-bit
Maximum Memory Support 16 MB
L1 Cache None
L2 Cache None
Frequency 8 – 20 MHz
FSB 8 – 20 MHz
FPU 80287
SIMD None
Fab 1500 nm
Transistor Count 134,000
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage 5V
Die Area 49 mm2
Socket 68 pins

In 1985 AMD withdraw from the DRAM market and made headway to the CMOS market, which lagged even after having access to the bipolar chips. In the same tear Intel released its first 32-bit x86 processor design, the 80386. AMD then released its own version AM386. But that didn’t too long. Intel held it up in court. Intel claimed that its cross-licensing agreement permitted AMD to produce copies of only the 80286 and older processor designs, but AMD argued that the contract permitted it to create clones of the 80386 and future x86 derivatives, as well. After years of legal battles, the courts sided with AMD, and the company was able to release its AM386 in 1991.

Even though the AM386 was an 80386 clone, but it came up with 40 MHz while the Intel had 33 MHz . This gave AMD a performance advantage over Intel as it used the same socket and platform as the 80386, therefore the customers could upgrade their aging system. 1 million units of this processor were sold.

AMD AM386

Release Date 1991
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4 GB
L1 Cache None
L2 Cache None
Frequency 12 – 40 MHz
FSB 12 – 40 MHz
FPU 80387
SIMD None
Fab 1500 – 1000 nm
Transistor Count 275,000
Power Consumption 2 W
Voltage 5V
Die Area 42 mm2
Socket 132 pins

The Final Clone

The final clone AMD produced was the AM486 and released in 1944. While the AM386 was used for small computer manufacturers, but the AM486 became popular among large computer manufacturer. Like what we have seen with the AM386 processor, in similar when the Intel’s 80486 was capped at 100 MHz, AMD wend a little further as 120 MHZ with the AM486.

This was when the L1 cache was added to increase the performance, when compared to the AM386. It also moved the FPU to the same CPU package giving a slighter boost to the performance. Prior to this all FPU were sold as separate hardware units and connected to the CPU through the motherboard.

AMD AM486

Date 1993
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4 GB
L1 Cache 8 – 16 KB
L2 Cache None
Frequency 16 – 120 MHz
FSB 16 – 50 MHz
FPU Integrated
SIMD None
Fab 800 – 1000 nm
Transistor Count 1,185,000
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage 5V – 3.3V
Die Area 67-81 mm2
Socket 168 pins

After the release of the Pentium series, AMD too geared up to introduce the “Pentium Rating System”. The 133 MHz AMD AM5x86 was a higher clocked enhanced Am486.

AMD AM5x86

Release Date 1995
Architecture 32 -bit
Data Bus 32 -bit
Address Bus 32 -bit
Maximum Memory Support 4 Gb
L1 Cache 16 KB
L2 Cache None
Frequency 133 – 150 MHz
FSB 33 – 50 MHz
FPU Integrated
SIMD None
Fab 350 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage 3.45 V
Die Area N/A
Socket 168 pins

K5: AMD First Own x86 Processor

In the year of 1966 AMD released its in-house designed x86 processor. The fifth gen x86 K5 processor used the execution hardware from the discontinued AM29000 RISC processor with an x86 frontend. Since the execution back end hardware was based on RISC design, Instructions were encoded into micro-instructions and fed into one of five integer execution units or an integrated FPU.

AMD implemented such a design which limited the clock speed. As a result K5 was not able to surpass Intel’s Pentium in terms of performance. It was considered relatively efficient.

Release Date 1996
Architecture 32 –bit
Data Bus 32 –bit
Address Bus 32 –bit
Maximum Memory Support 4 Gb
L1 Cache 16 KB + 8 KB
L2 Cache None
SIMD None
FSB 50 – 66 MHz
SIMD None
Fab 350 – 500 nm
Transistor Count 4.3 Million
Power Consumption 11 – 16 W
Voltage 3.52 V
Die Area 181 – 251 mm2
Connection Socket 5 & Socket 7

AMD K6 processor

This microprocessor was launched in 1997. Its main advantage was that it could fit into existing desktop design for Pentium-branded CPUs.

The AMD K6 is based on the Nx686 microprocessor that NexGen was designing, when it was acquired by AMD. Initially it launched at 166 – 200MHz, followed by 233 MHz version. Initially the AMD K6 processor used Pentium II-based performance rating, which was later dropped because the rated frequency of the processor was the same as the real frequency.

The K6 was compatible with Socket7 motherboards; clock-for-clock. It included the important MMX SIMD instruction set.

AMD K6 Processors
AMD K6 Processors (Image Credit: in.pinterest.com)
Date 1997/1998
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 32 KB + 32 KB
L2 Cache None
L3 Cache None
Clock Speed 266 -350 MHz
FSB 50 – 66 MHz
SIMD MMX
FAB 350 – 250 nm
Transistor Count 8.8 Million
Power Consumption 12 – 28 W
Voltage 2.2 – 3.2 V
Die Area 68 – 157 mm2
Socket Socket 7

AMD K6-II

AMD next processor was the K6 II, which was eventually an extended version of the K6. It used a faster 100MHz FSB, higher clock speeds and a new SIMD instruction. SIMD instruction set as a competitor to Intel’s MMX, and gave customers an upgrade from the aging Pentium MMX processors.

Date 1998
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 32 KB + 32 KB
L2 Cache None
L3 Cache None
Clock Speed 300 -550 MHz
FSB 66 – 100 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 250 nm
Transistor Count 9.3 Million
Power Consumption 13 – 25 W
Voltage 2.2 – 2.4 W
Die Area 81 mm2
Socket Socket 7/Super Socket7

AMD K6-III: The Integration of L2 Cache

The K6-III was a K6-2 core with full speed 256Kib L2 cache integrated on the same die. This integration reduced latency and increased bandwidth. AMD however quickly replaced it with the Athlon processor.

Date 1999
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 32 KB + 32 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB
L3 Cache None
Clock Speed 350 – 550 MHz
FSB 100 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 250 nm
Transistor Count 21.3 Million
Power Consumption 10 – 17 W
Voltage 2.2 – 2.4 W
Die Area 118 mm2
Socket Super Socket7

AMD K6-II+ and K6-III+

The last processors released by AMD in the K6 product line were the K6-II+ and the K6-III+. These processors were targeted at the mobile market. The K6II+ had 128 KB of L2 cache whereas the K6-III+ had 256 KB of L2 cache. AMD 180nm fab technology resulted that these processors became energy efficient.

Date 2000
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 32 KB + 32 KB
L2 Cache 128 Kb – 256 KB
L3 Cache None
Clock Speed 400 – 500 MHz
FSB 100 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 180 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage 1.6 – 2.0 W
Die Area N/A
Socket N/A

AMD K7 and K75

In 1988 AMD partnered with Semiconductor giant Motorola to co-develop copper based semiconductor technology. This resulted in the K7 project being first commercial processor to use copper fabrication technology .The K7 design team consisted of the previously acquired NexGen K6 team and the new Alpha design team.

In 1999, AMD released its seventh-generation processor, the Athlon. The Athlon microarchitecture used a separate L-2 cache chip on board. A new extended MMX was also introduced. In the second generation the L2 cache was integrated. The new architecture increased IPC and pushed the clock speed to 1 GHz. Previously the FPU lagged behind Intel’s. This time it was improved.

AMD K7

Date June 1999
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB
L3 Cache None
Clock Speed 500 – 700 MHz
FSB 100 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 250 nm
Transistor Count 22 Million
Power Consumption 31 – 65 W
Voltage 1.6 – 1.8 W
Die Area 102 mm2
Socket Slot A

AMD K75

Date Nov 1999
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB
L3 Cache None
Clock Speed 550 – 850 MHz
FSB 100 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 180 nm
Transistor Count 22 Million
Power Consumption 31 – 65 W
Voltage 1.6 – 1.8 W
Die Area 102 mm2
Socket Slot A

AMD K7: Athlon Thunderbird

AMD team realised that that the dull performance of thee L2 cache was hampering the CPU performance. This version of Athlon shipped in a traditional pin-grid array format that plugged into a socket on the motherboard. Although L2 cache size as cut to half, it ran at the same speed as the CPU, thereby improving the performance drastically.

AMD Athlon Processor
AMD Athlon Processor
Date 2000
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB
L3 Cache None
Clock Speed 600 – 1400 MHz
FSB 100, 133 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 180 nm
Transistor Count 37 Million
Power Consumption 38 – 72 W
Voltage 1.7 – 1.75 W
Die Area 120 mm2
Socket Socket A

AMD Duron

The Duron processor was derived from the mainstream Athlon Thunderbird processor. Duron was introduced as a budget line x86 compatible processor. These processors ran at lower clock speeds.

Date 2000/2001
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 64 KB
L3 Cache None
Frequency 600 – 950 MHz
FSB 100
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 180 nm
Transistor Count 37 Million
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage 1.5 – 1.75 W
Die Area 120 mm2
Socket Socket A

AMD K7: Athlon Palomino

AMD released the third generation Athlon, code-named “Palomino”, on 2001 as Athlon XP. This “XP” was used to mean extended performance and also as an unofficial reference to the Windows XP. AMD pushed the clock speed even higher to 333MHz, and also added the support of SSE SIMD instruction set.

Date May 2001
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB
L3 Cache None
Frequency 850 – 1733 MHz
FSB 133 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!
FAB 180 nm
Transistor Count 37.5 Million
Power Consumption 46 – 72 W
Voltage 1.75 W
Die Area 129.26 mm2
Socket Socket A

AMD K7: Athlon Thoroughbred

AMD released the fourth generation of Athlon with the Thoroughbred core. It was released on June 10, 2002. Thoroughbred was AMD’s first 130 nm based Die size.

The core was referred to as Tbred, there were two versions the Tbred-A and the Tbred-B. the Tbred-A was based on preceding Palomino core with minimal design changes. The reduced Die size resulted in lower power consumption and pushed frequencies to 2GHz.

Date April 2002
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB
L3 Cache None
Frequency 1 – 2.25 GHz
FSB 100 – 166 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
FAB 130 nm
Transistor Count 37.2 Million
Power Consumption 49 – 68 W
Voltage 1.5 – 1.65 W
Die Area 84.66 mm2
Socket Socket A

AMD K7: Athlon Barton

AMD released the fifth generation Athlon Barton processor in 2003. These processors were marked at higher PR rating rather than with increased clock speed compared to the Thoroughbred.

Barton processors doubled the size of L2 cache and added support for 200 MHz FSB and 400 MHz DDR RAM.

Date Feb 2003
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB
L3 Cache None
Frequency 1.3 – 2.33 GHz
FSB 100 – 200 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
FAB 130 nm
Transistor Count 54.3 Million
Power Consumption 60 – 76 W
Voltage 1.65 W
Die Area 100.99 mm2
Socket Socket A

AMD Athlon Thorton and Duron

Thorton was released as a variant of Barton with half of L2 cache disabled. Both Thorton and Barton were released as two lower -end processors.

Thorton had 256 KB of L2 cache and ran at a higher clock speed than Barton. The Duron had only 64 KB of L2 cache and ran at 1.8 GHz.

AMD Athlon Thorton and Duron

Date 2003 2003
Architecture 32-bit 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB 64 KB
L3 Cache None None
Frequency 1.66 – 2.2 GHz .41 – 1.8 GHz
FSB 100 – 200 MHz 133 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
FAB 130 nm 130 nm
Transistor Count 54.3 Million 54.3 Million
Power Consumption N/A N/A
Voltage 1.5 – 1.65 W 1.5 W
Die Area 100.99 mm2 100.99 mm2
Socket Socket A Socket A

AMD Geode

Geode was released to target at the embedded computing market. The original Geode processor was derived from the Cyrix MediaGX platform. AMD bought the Geode business from national in 2003 and extended it low-end product offering.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/AMD_Geode_LX_800%400.9W_Processor_%28white_background%29.jpg/220px-AMD_Geode_LX_800%400.9W_Processor_%28white_background%29.jpg
(Image Credit: pcgameshardware.de)

AMD launched two processors under the “Geode” name at the low-end AMD introduced the GX series whereas for higher performance LX series was launched.

AMD Geode GX-Series

Date 2003
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 16 KB
L2 Cache N/A
L3 Cache None
Frequency 333 – 400 MHz
FSB N/A
SIMD N/A
FAB N/A
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage N/A
Die Area N/A
Socket N/A

AMD Geode LX-Series

Date 2003
Architecture 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 128 KB
L3 Cache None
Frequency 366 – 600 MHz
FSB N/A
SIMD N/A
FAB 130 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage N/A
Die Area N/A
Socket N/A

AMD K7: First Sempron

The Sempron was introduced to compete with the Intel’s Celeron processor. The Sempron was a daily use processor. It CPU was based on the Athlon XP architecture using the Thoroughbred core. It used 256 KB of L2 cache.

Name Throton Barton
Date July 2004 Sep 2004
Architecture 32-bit 32-bit
Data Bus 32-bit 32-bit
Address Bus 32-bit 32-bit
Maximum Memory Support 4GB 4GB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB 256 KB
L3 Cache None None
Frequency 1.5 – 2.0 GHz 2 – 2.2 GHz
FSB 166 MHz 166 – 200 MHz
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE MMX, 3DNow!, SSE
FAB 130 nm 130 nm
Transistor Count 37.2 – 54.3 Million 54.3 Million
Power Consumption N/A N/A
Voltage 1.6 W 1.6 – 1.65 W
Die Area 84.66 – 100.99

mm2

100.99 mm2
Socket Socket A Socket A

AMD K8: Athlon 64

AMD Athlon 64 was the first 64-bit processor targeted at the consumer level. Since I was a 64-bit deign the memory support was extended to 1 TB. The Pcs were no longer limited to 4GB of memory and 8GB of RAM. AMD also moved the memory controller from its chipset and integrate it to the CPU die. As a result memory latency reduced and performance got jumped up.

This thing removed the FS from the system and instead AMD introduced its HyperTransport technology, which was of a greter bandwidth than the FSB connection.

AMD Athlon 64 Sledgehammer

Date 2003/2004
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 1 MB
Hyper Transport 800 MHz
Clock Speed 1.4 – 2.4 GHz
Memory Controller Single channel 400 MHz DDR
SIMD MMX, Enhanced3DNow!

SSE,SSE2

FAB 130 nm
Transistor Count 105.9 Million
Power Consumption 89 W TDP
Voltage 1.5 – 1.55 V
Die Area 193 mm2
Socket Socket 940

AMD Athlon Newcastle/Clawhammer

Date 2004
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB(Newcastle),1MB(Clawhammer)
Hyper Transport 800 – 1000 MHz
Clock Speed 1.8 – 2.4 GHz
Memory Controller Single channel 400 MHz DDR
SIMD MMX, Enhanced3DNow!

SSE,SSE2

FAB 130 nm
Transistor Count 105.9 Million
Power Consumption 89 W TDP
Voltage 1.5 – 1.55 V
Die Area 193 mm2
Socket Socket 754, Socket 939

AMD K8

The change from K7 to K8 is the integration of AMD64 instructions and the on-chip memory controller. The memory controller reduces memory latency and improves performance. It was introduced in 2004 with 90nm die area. Venice was the last Athlon 64 processor released by AMD. It was compatible with the AMD’s Socket 754. Orleans was released in 2006 which was most energy efficient with 62 W TDP.

AMD Athlon 64 Venice

Date 2005
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB
Hyper Transport 800 MHz
Clock Speed 1.8 – 2.2 GHz
Memory Controller Single Channel 400 MHz DDR
SIMD MMX, Enhanced3DNow!

SSE,SSE2,SSE3

FAB 90 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption 64 W TDP
Voltage 1.35 – 1.4 V
Die Area N/A
Socket Socket 754

AMD Athlon Orleans

Date 2006
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 1 MB
Hyper Transport 800-1000 MHz
Clock Speed 1.4 – 2.6 GHz
Memory Controller Dual-Channel DDR2
SIMD MMX, Enhanced3DNow!

SSE,SSE2,SSE3

FAB 90 nm
Transistor Count 105.9 Million
Power Consumption 62 W TDP
Voltage 1.25 – 1.4 V
Die Area N/A
Socket Socket AM2

AMD K8: Sempron

The first Sempron was based on the AMD Athlon XP architecture. AMD updated this new Sempron architecture, but with less cache and clock speeds.

AMD Sempron Series
AMD Sempron Series

AMD K8 Sempron

Date 2004 -2007
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 128 KB – 512 KB
Hyper Transport 800/1000 MHz
Clock Speed 1.4 – 2.3 GHz
Memory Controller Single channel DDR/Dual Channel DDR/Dual ChannelDDR2
SIMD MMX, Enhanced3DNow!

SSE,SSE2

FAB 130 – 65 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption N/A
Voltage 1.2 – 1.4 V
Die Area N/A
Socket Socket 754/Socket939/SocketAM2

AMD K8: Athlon 64 X2

The Athlon 64 X2 was designed from scratch as a dual core by using a multi-CPU enabled Athlon 64, joining it with another functional core on one die and connecting both via a shared dual-channel memory.

The two processors were incapable of working on the same thread simultaneously. The second core would handle other tasks and increase multitasking performance. AMD produced a total number of six configurations, the sixth configuration was the fastest and the most energy efficient. It had a 65 nm technology.

Name Manchester-Windsor Brisbane
Date 2005 – 2006 2006
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB 512 KB
L3 Cache None None
Frequency 2 – 3.2 GHz 1.9– 3.1 GHz
Memory controller Dual Channel DDR/DDR2 Dual channel DDR2
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3 MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3
FAB 90 nm 65 nm
Transistor Count N/A N/A
Power Consumption 35 – 125 W TDP 65 – 89 W TDP
Voltage 1.25 – 1.4 V 1.25 – 1.35 V
Die Area N/A 126 mm2
Socket Socket 939, Socket AM2 Socket AM2

AMD K8: Turion and Turion X2

AMD introduced this as a new mobile product line called “Turion”. Due to core binding it could operate with less power. The Turion X2 was a dual core variant

Name Turion Turion X2
Date 2005 – 2008 2006 – 2008
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB – 1 MB 256 KB – 1 MB
L3 Cache None None
Frequency 1.6 – 2.4 GHz 1.6– 2.5 GHz
Memory controller Single Channel DDR/Dual Channel DDR2 Dual channel DDR2
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3 MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3
FAB 65-90 nm 65-90 nm
Transistor Count N/A N/A
Power Consumption 25 – 35 W TDP 31 – 35 W TDP
Voltage 0.8 – 1.35 V N/A
Die Area N/A N/A
Socket Socket 754, Socket S1 Socket S1

AMD K10

The AMD K10 is a processor based on the K8 microarchitecture. In 2003 AMD wanted to implement some outlined features for the next-gen microprocessors. These features included were

Threaded architecture, Chip level multiprocessing, huge scale MP, 10GHz operation etc…

The first K10 processor was based on Barcelona configuration and sold as Opteron server processors. A TLB bug was detected which would lock up the CPU, but soon AMD released a software to solve it. The fastest quad-core model was limited to 2.6 GHz, whereas K10 processors under Athlon reached to 2.8 GHz.

Name Agena Toliman
Date Nov 2007 March 2008
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB 512 KB
Hyper transport 2000 MHz 2000 MHz
Frequency 1.8 – 2.6 GHz 1.9– 2.5 GHz
Memory controller Dual Channel DDR2 Dual channel DDR2
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a
FAB 65 nm 65 nm
Transistor Count 450 Million 450 Million
Power Consumption 65 – 140 W TDP 65 – 95 W TDP
Core Count 4 3
Voltage 1.25 – 1.4 V 1.25 – 1.35 V
Die Area 285 mm2 285 mm2
Socket Socket AM2/AM2+ Socket AM2+

AMD K10: Phenom II

The Phenom II was launched with a die area of 45 nm. It used the same architecture as the AMD K10. As a result of the 45nm process, power consumption dropped, as also the amount of heat released. This resulted in higher clock speed of about 3.7 GHz. Since the size of die was small AMD was able to triple the L3 cache.

AMD Phenom II X4

Date Jan 2009
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 1 MB
L3 Cache 6 MB
Hyper Transport 2000 MHz
Clock Speed 2.6 – 3.7 GHz
Memory Controller Dual-Channel DDR2
SIMD MMX, Enhanced3DNow!

SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a

FAB 45 nm
Transistor Count 758 Million
Power Consumption 65 – 140 W TDP
Voltage 1.4 V
Die Area 243 mm2
Socket Socket AM2+/AM3

AMD K10: Phenom II X2 and X3

AMD recycled its semi-defective quad-core CPU die as a triple and dual core dies. These processors had the 6MB of L3 Cache but ran at lower clock speeds.

Name Heka Callisto
Date Feb 2009 June 2009
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB 512 KB
Hyper transport 2000 MHz 2000 MHz
Clock Speed 2.4 – 3.2 GHz 2.8– 3.5 GHz
Memory controller Dual Channel DDR2,Dual- Channel DDR3 Dual channel DDR2,Dual-ChannelDDR3
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a
FAB 65 nm 65 nm
Transistor Count 758 Million 758 Million
Power Consumption 65 – 95 W TDP 80 W TDP
Core Count 3 2
Voltage 1.4 V 1.4 V
Die Area 243 mm2 243 mm2
Socket SockeAM2+/AM3 Socket AM2+/AM3

AMD K10: Athlon II

AMD introduced low-end processors branded Athlon II. To cut the production cost L3 was discontinued here. The quad-core die was named Propus whereas the Triple-core was named Regor.

AMD Athlon II

Name Propus Regor
Date Sept 2009 June 2009
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB 512 KB
Hyper transport 2000 MHz 2000 MHz
Frequency 2.2 – 3.2GHz 2.8 – 3.6 GHz
Memory controller Dual Channel DDR2,Dual-ChannelDDR3 Dual channel DDR2,Dual-ChannelDDr3
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a
FAB 45 nm 45 nm
Transistor Count N/A 234 Million
Power Consumption 45 – 95 W TDP 25 – 65 W TDP
Core Count 4 2
Voltage 1.25 – 1.4 V 1.25 – 1.35 V
Die Area 285 mm2 285 mm2
Socket SocketAM2+/AM3 Socket AM2+/AM3

AMD K10: Sempron

AMD extended its Sempron line to serve the lowest-performance product in the K10 line. The K10 Sempros was developed from the single-core Sargas die which was built from defective Regor core.

Date July 2009
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 1 MB
L3 Cache None
Hyper Transport 2000 MHz
Clock Speed 1.8 –2.9 GHz
Memory Controller Dual-Channel DDR2, Dual-ChannelDDr3
SIMD MMX, Enhanced3DNow!

SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a

FAB 45 nm
Transistor Count 234 Million
Power Consumption 65 – 140 W TDP
Voltage 1.3 V
Die Area 117 mm2
Socket Socket AM2+/AM3

AMD K10: Phenom II X6

In 2010 AMD lifted its K10 product line by introducing the Thuban and the Zosma CPU dies. The thuban consisted of a total six cores and clocked it as high as 3.3 GHz.AMD introduced Turbo Core technology which allowed to push the clock speed even further to 3.7 GHZ.

AMD Phenom II Processors
AMD Phenom II Processors (Image Credit: commons.wikimedia.org)
Name Thuban Zosma
Date 2010 2010
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB 512 KB
L3 Cache 6 MB 6MB
Hyper transport 2000 MHz 2000 MHz
Clock Speed 2.4 – 3.3 GHz 2.7– 3.5 GHz
Memory controller Dual Channel DDR2,Dual- Channel DDR3 Dual channel DDR2,Dual-ChannelDDR3
SIMD MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a MMX, 3DNow!, SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a
FAB 45 nm 45 nm
Transistor Count 904 Million 904 Million
Power Consumption 95 – 125 W TDP 95 – 125 W TDP
Core Count 6 4
Voltage 1.4 V 1.4 V
Die Area 346 mm2 346 mm2
Socket SocketAM3 SocketAM3

AMD Bobcat

The Bobcat was aimed at low power/low-cost market. It was implemented in AMD APU processor with a TDP of 18 W or less. Since Bobcat was designed to be efficient it ran at fairly lower clock speed of 1.75 GHz. Bobcat is technically an APU with 80 stream of iGPU. The processor based on a Terascale 2.

AMD Bobcat

Date 2011
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 32 KB + 32 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB
Core Count 1 – 2
Hyper Transport 2000 MHz
Clock Speed 0.8 –1.75 GHz
Memory Controller Single-Channel DDR3L
SIMD MMXSSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4.1/4.2
FAB 40 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption 4.5 – 18 W TDP
Voltage 0.5 – 1.4 V
Die Area 107 mm2
Socket AM1

AMD Bulldozer: Zambezi

The bulldozer was developed from scratch. It was aimed to computing products with TDP 10 – 125 W. Bulldozer attempted to use a high core count and clock speed to outperform Intel’s Sandy Bridge.

AMD Bulldozer Zambezi

Date Oct 2011
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + 64 KB
L2 Cache 2 MB
L3 Cache 8 MB
Core 4,6,8
Hyper Transport 2600 MHz
Clock Speed 2.8 –4.2 GHz
Memory Controller Dual-ChannelDDr3
SIMD MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4.1/4.2
FAB 32 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption 95 – 125 W TDP
Voltage 0.95 – 1.4125 V
Die Area 316 mm2
Socket SocketAM3

AMD Piledriver: Trinty and Richland

After a year bulldozer debuted, AMD released a new architecture called the Piledriver. It was initially released with the company’s second gen APU. The clockspeed increased by 10 percent.

Name Trinity Richland
Date 2012 2013
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 64 KB + (2×16) KB 64 KB + (2×16) KB
L2 Cache 2 MB 2 MB
L3 Cache N/A N/A
Hyper transport 2000 MHz 2000 MHz
Clock Speed 2.9 – 3.8 GHz 2.1– 4.1 GHz
Memory controller Dual- Channel DDR3 Dual-ChannelDDR3
SIMD MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a, SSE4.1/4.2,AVX MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a,SSE4.1/4.2
FAB 32 nm 32 nm
Transistor Count 1300 Million 1300 Million
Power Consumption 65 – 100 W TDP 45 – 100 W TDP
Core Count 2 – 4 2 – 4
Voltage 0.825 – 1.475 V N/A
Die Area 346 mm2 346 mm2
Socket SocketAM3 SocketAM3

AMD Steamroller: A GCN APU

AMD updated its APU line with a new Steamroller architecture which succeeded Piledriver. Steamroller focused on parallelism. AMD improved the instruction percycle to 30% which with decreased power increaded the performance.

Name Kaveri Godavari
Date 2014 2015
Architecture 64-bit 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1 Tb 1 TB
L1 Cache 96 KB + (2×16) KB 96 KB + (2×16) KB
L2 Cache 2 MB 2 MB
L3 Cache N/A N/A
Hyper transport 2000 MHz 2000 MHz
Clock Speed 3.1 – 3.7 GHz 2.9 – 3.9 GHz
Memory controller Dual- Channel DDR3 Dual-ChannelDDR3
SIMD MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a, SSE4.1/4.2,AVX MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4a,SSE4.1/4.2
FAB 28 nm 28 nm
Transistor Count 2.41 Billion 2.41 Billion
Power Consumption 65 – 95 W TDP 65 – 95 W TDP
Core Count 2 – 4 2 – 4
Voltage N/A N/A
Die Area 245 mm2 N/A
Socket GCN Radeon R5/R7 GCN Radeon R5/R7

AMD Jaguar

The Jaguar architecture was released in 2014 to replace the aging Bobcat. The CPU count was increased by four and moved to a faster GCN- based graphic processor. IPC was raised by 15% with a boost in clock speed.

Date 2014
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 32 KB + 32 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB
L3 Cache None
Core 2 – 4
iGPU architecture GCN Radeon R3
Clock Speed 2.8 –4.2 GHz
Memory Controller Dual-Channel DDr3
SIMD MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4.1/4.2,AVX
FAB 28 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption 3.9 – 25 W TDP
Voltage 0.5 – 1.4 V
Die Area 107 mm2
Socket AM1

AMD Excavator

Excavator was the last processor whose architecture was based on Bulldozer. The processor had less L2 cache but twice as much as L1cache. Since the L1 cache was faster than L2 cache it helped boost the IPC performance. The graphic processor also gain some 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache to increase graphic processing power.

Date 2015
Architecture 64-bit
Data Bus 64-bit
Address Bus 64-bit
Maximum Memory Support 1TB
L1 Cache 192 KB + (2×32) KB
L2 Cache 1 MB
L3 Cache None
Core 2 – 4
iGPU architecture GCN Radeon R3
Clock Speed 2.8 –4.2 GHz
Memory Controller Dual-Channel DDr3
SIMD MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSE4.1/4.2,AVX,AVX
FAB 28 nm
Transistor Count N/A
Power Consumption 65 W TDP
Voltage N/A
Die Area N/A
iGPU architecture GCN radeon r3
iGPU Shader Count 512
Socket FM2+

AMD: Ryzen

After losing all its market to Intel, AMD introduced the ryzen processor. We will discuss further about these processors in next article let’s keep it a secret now.

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