ntel, AMD in Quad-Core duel

Advanced Micro Devices Inc has introduced its next-generation microchip, codenamed Barcelona, in its long-awaited bid to regain ground lost to larger rival Intel Corp. Barcelona, AMD's first quad-core microprocessor, is also expected to once again ratchet up the company's bitter battle with arch rival Intel.

AMD has been shipping the Quad-Core AMD Opteron chip to server vendors since last month, but will use its news conference this week in San Francisco to publicly announce those partnerships as well as prices.

AMD's customers such as Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems are already shipping computer systems using the AMD Barcelona chip and the chipmaker has already booked revenue from the new semiconductor.

Barcelona and the line Intel launched last week the Xeon 7300, target network servers. One difference is that the Intel Xeon 7300 is strictly for servers and Barcelona is AMD's next big design advance. Other Barcelona chips will target PCs.

“The stakes here are for AMD to staunch the erosion in its market share and to once again go on the offensive against Intel,” said Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood. “That's the biggest thing.”

According to analysts, Barcelona has certain features which give AMD an upper edge.

One, AMD's design is a 'native' quad core, which means that AMD has built four identical cores onto a single piece of silicon. Intel puts two dual-core chip designs side by side on a chip, and connects them to form a quad core. AMD claims its design performs better. The company says that the design overhaul is the most important improvement in delivering higher performance.

Intel recently launched its own high-end server processors, but those were only speeded-up versions, Brookwood said, adding that Intel's own chips -- codenamed Nehala -- using a similar design to AMD's will not be available until a year from now. AMD upgraded each core from 64-bit floating point performance to 128-bit, and retained its Direct Connect architecture and on-chip memory controller to avoid bottlenecks in data flow Analysts say having the memory controller on the processor is faster than having the controller in a separate chip set, as Intel does it.

Intel plans to put an on-chip memory controller on its devices starting in late 2008 or 2009.
At the same time, Intel's new Xeon 7300 quad core, however, has a few advantages over AMD's Barcelona.

For one, Intel's had nine months to work the bugs out of the design, something AMD can't say. AMD had planned to roll out Barcelona almost six months back, but was delayed when it ran into design problems.

AMD's path toward launch has been rocky, with AMD Chief Executive Hector Ruiz saying the chips are launching about six months behind schedule. Some analysts and investors expressed disappointment that the chips available at launch are slower than expected -- operating at 1.9 gigahertz to 2.3 gigahertz, depending on the model.

AMD said it will boost their speed later this year. By comparison, Intel's fastest Xeon server processors operate at 3.0 gigahertz, which measures processing cycles per second.

In addition, Intel will go on to a more advanced manufacturing process by the end of this year. Presently, both the companies use 65-nanometer designs. Intel will start using a 45-nm design later this year. The measurement refers to the width of the circuitry on the chip. The smaller the nanometer size, the higher the performance and the lower the cost of the chip.

Upping the ante

AMD was not a player in the lucrative server processor market until it released its first Opteron chip in 2003. Demand soared because of its energy efficiency, ease of use in servers that can handle multiple processors and other technological features, and by last year, AMD had grown to capture about a quarter of the worldwide market, according to Mercury Research. But Santa Clara-based Intel fought back last year with a strong new line-up of chips based on a new design, and it also beat AMD to market with its first four-core chips. Compared with Intel's new products, AMD's product line began to look dated, and its market share plunged. AMD now controls only about 13 per cent of the server market.

Success critical

AMD has a lot riding on Barcelona. The company is counting on Barcelona to lift its sales and move it back into the black. Sunnyvale-based AMD has lost money in the past three quarters, a trend expected to continue in the next few quarters. After several years of market share gains vs Intel, AMD started losing share last year as Intel stepped up its product pace. AMD's share of total microprocessor sales has dipped from nearly 25 per cent early last year, analysts say. Its stock has plunged by almost half in the last one year. “What is key about this product is really getting back some of that lost share,” said Dean McCarron, Mercury Research's president and principal analyst.