Fifty years of ups and downs between Intel and AMD

Speaking of Intel and AMD, they have been bitter and happy enemies for nearly fifty years. The competition between Intel and AMD seems to have been doomed from the beginning of their establishment. In 1968 , Intel was established, and in 1969, AMD began its official business . The "fight" between the two companies began. When talking about them, we have to mention another legendary giant company in its early years - Fairchild Semiconductor Company. Once the world's largest, most innovative and exciting semiconductor manufacturing company.

The founders of Intel and AMD both came from the legendary giant company "Fairchild Semiconductor Company" in the early years.

The founders of Intel and AMD both came from the legendary giant company "Fairchild Semiconductor Company" in the early years.

Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in 1957. The founder was Dr. Shockley , the famous " Father of the Transistor." At that time, young talents in the electronic field were attracted by Shockley's fame and joined the company one after another. The company is full of talented people. The most famous ones are several geniuses who were called the "Eight Rebels" by Dr. Xiao Kede and later generations. Among them , A. Grove and Gordon Moore in the "Eight Rebels" later became one of the founders of Intel , and Gordon Moore was the proposer of the famous Moore's Law. In addition, AMD founder Jerry Sanders also came from this legendary company and had a sales background.

"Eight Rebels" Photos

Early Intel and AMD market strategies: Intel took the lead

In the early days, Intel did not start with processors, but opened up the market with memories. This was also the first direction Moore gave Intel. Although the magnetic coil memory used by the industry in the early days was simple in principle, the process was very complicated. It was difficult to produce by machine and needed to be made by hand. The quality of the finished product was not very good and the volume was very large. Moore wanted to use the triode principle to manufacture memory, so the memory produced by Intel at that time had a larger storage capacity than magnetic coil memory, was much smaller, and had lower manufacturing costs. With comprehensive technical advantages, market choices are conceivable, and Intel has become famous. This also allowed Intel, founded in 1968, to become profitable by 1969 and to maintain profitability in most years thereafter. We have always maintained our position as a technology innovator and a technology development-oriented company.

Due to its own lack of strength, AMD chose to be market-oriented and strive to become the second supplier of various products through imitation and production capabilities with high-quality and low-price products.

In 1971, the 4004 developed by Intel became the world's first commercial microprocessor, which was of great significance to the development of computers in the future.

Busicom Unicom calculator with 4004 processor

In 1978, Intel launched the 8086 processor, which was also the first x86 processor in history. It eventually became the standard platform for personal computers and the most successful CPU architecture in history.

IBM makes Intel and AMD work together for the first time

IBM makes Intel and AMD work together for the first time

In 1982, in order to successfully win an order from IBM (both blue trademarks, both starting with I, IBM's history precedes Intel. Intel's take-off is actually related to IBM), Intel and AMD entered into the first Cooperation, and at the request of IBM, AMD was authorized by Intel to become its second supplier of 8086 and 8088 chips, and manufactured a clone of the 80286 processor "Am286" based on Intel's design and microcode. During this period, it can be said to be a rare honeymoon period for AMD and Intel. This business behavior benefited both companies at the same time, and it also made AMD a success, giving it room for development and the capital to fight Intel in the future.

As time goes by, with the continuous introduction of 286 and 386, especially the era of 486, it symbolizes the advent of the era of real processors, which adds FPU and frequency multiplier. Gradually, the x86 system began to dominate the consumer microprocessor market, while IBM only held on to its territory in the server market. Intel's business was booming and it became a PC giant as famous as Microsoft.

Honeymoon ends, Intel picture is poor

In the meantime, in 1986, Intel canceled the licensing agreement with AMD, terminated the honeymoon period between the two companies, and refused to disclose the technical details of the 386 processor. According to the agreement at the time, the partnership between Intel and AMD was a cross-licensing mode. But later, Intel unilaterally rejected the "chip" provided by AMD, and a bitter battle in court was inevitable. In 1987, AMD took Intel to court for breach of contract, and Intel immediately countersued AMD for infringement (involving Intel's 287 FPU) to fight back. After that, AMD sued Intel again for monopolizing the market, and Intel countersued AMD again for infringement (involving AMD's AM486 IP). The two sides engaged in an eight-year legal battle. Although AMD ultimately won the lawsuit, AMD also lost the golden period of CPU development and lived in the huge shadow of Intel for a long time.

In 1993, Intel changed its previous product naming method and registered an independent trademark - Pentium - for the product that people thought should be named 586. It also made AMD realize that the time had come to take a new path.

AMD independently develops K7 (Athlon) and successfully overtakes it

It was not until 1996 that AMD released the K5 processor, which truly competed with the Intel Pentium. This was also AMD's first independently designed processor product. Compared with Intel Pentium, K5 is more technically advanced, but it is not without its shortcomings. What's particularly attractive about it is that it uses a RISC internal architecture that decodes x86 instructions into microinstructions before executing them. Therefore, it is difficult for K5 to achieve high clock speed, and its FPU is also a weakness. However, in general use, K5's performance is slightly better than Pentium.

In 1997, AMD launched a new product, K6. In 1998, AMD released K6-2. In 1999, AMD launched the third version of K6, K6-III.

But what really made AMD start a turnaround was the emergence of the following product, which also led AMD to overtake Intel. That was the K7 - later renamed Athlon. This product also appeared in 1999. This processor got rid of the shortcomings of previous models and finally had a true FPU - in fact, it was better than Intel's FPU. Athlon was the fastest x86 processor at the time and had many strengths, including a fast FSB (used in EV6 in the first generation Alpha processor) and high performance. In the same year, AMD crossed the 1GHz frequency mark before Intel and reached 1016MHz.

The next few years were the battle between Pentium and Athlon. From 1999 to the beginning of 2003, AMD and Intel launched a tug-of-war, which was also the golden age of the DIY market. In that era, overclocking was the most direct way to improve the performance of the entire machine. , AMD went for the cost-effective "Thunderbird" and "Duron" and Intel went for the high-end "Ben 3" and "Ben 4". As a result, AMD accumulated a large number of loyal users and became a strong competitor for Intel's dominance.

Next, AMD launched a series of technical offensives. After Intel launched the Pentium 4 to distance itself from AMD in terms of main frequency, AMD vigorously promoted the concept of CPU efficiency. While stabilizing the market, it also concepted consumers to focus on the main frequency. consumption habits, laying a good foundation for future development.

In 2003, AMD first proposed the concept of 64-bit, catching Intel by surprise. At that time, 64-bit technology was limited to high-end server processor products. The implementation of 64-bit technology in the civilian field enabled AMD to take the initiative in the competition as a technology leader for the first time. Intel was very certain at the time that it would take at least a few years for 64-bit technology to enter the civilian market. However, a year later, in the face of market trends, it had to rush to announce the launch of 64-bit processors.

In this 64-bit competition, AMD has a clear advantage in terms of time and technology. Unfortunately, God was not kind. Due to Microsoft's procrastination, it launched a 64-bit operating system a year and a half later than expected. At this time, Intel's 64-bit microprocessor also "happened" to be on the market. AMD received a lot of praise but the "box office" was bleak. Fortunately, AMD may have anticipated this. Its backward-compatible 64-bit technology has better performance in 32-bit applications. Not bad, it's a pity not to end up in a worse situation.

Intel, which had not taken the lead in 64-bit, made another move on dual-core processors and launched dual-core products one month ahead of AMD. AMD is no longer the small company that followed others. After launching its own dual-core products, it threw out the debate about true and false dual-core.

Intel proposes Pendulum Plan Core 2 turns out to turn the tide

But AMD's good days did not last long, and Intel subsequently proposed a pendulum plan. That is, every update of the processor microarchitecture and every update of the chip manufacturing process follow the "Tick-Tock" law. The name comes from the sound made when the second hand of the clock moves. Each "Tick" represents an update of the microarchitecture processor chip manufacturing process of a generation, and each "Tock" represents an update of the microprocessor architecture to improve performance based on the chip manufacturing process of the last "Tick". Generally, the cycle of a "Tick-Tock" is two years, with "Tick" accounting for one year and "Tock" accounting for one year. It was this plan that allowed Intel to reverse the situation after 2006.

In July 2006, Intel's next-generation processor Core 2 was launched (Core 2, commonly known as Core 2), using a 65-nanometer process technology. Intel claimed that it would increase performance by 40% and reduce power consumption by 40%. The release of this blockbuster product instantly eliminated all the advantages of AMD's Athlon 64 Dropped by more than a thousand yuan. . . . . . AMD has used the most successful and dazzling FX brand for 3 years, and it has begun to fade out of people's sight.

Court disputes 2005-2007

During this period, the feud between AMD and Intel was also entangled in the court. In 2005, AMD filed a lawsuit against Intel in Delaware for violating antitrust laws. AMD also filed a lawsuit in Japan. In September of the same year, Intel filed a lawsuit against AMD in court, refuting AMD's accusations and stating that its business practices were fair and legal.

By July 2007, the European Commission formally accused Intel of anti-competitive behavior against its main competitor AMD.

In fact, the dispute between the two companies in the court has always existed. AMD once accused Intel of using various methods to abuse its monopoly position in the X86 microprocessor market to prevent other companies from fair competition. AMD alleges that Intel offers greater discounts to PC makers that only use Intel chips, penalizes OEMs that consider buying AMD chips, and gives its products away to customers in an effort to prevent AMD from gaining market share.

Intel said that the X86 microprocessor market is very competitive, and AMD has not been able to gain market share because their products have not had an advantage for many years.

In short, the feud between the two companies has been entangled from products to accusations. . . . .

AMD's open-core era

In 2009, AMD released the Phenom II The performance may be improved by one or even several levels. In the next two years, many classic "open-core" CPUs appeared one after another. But it is difficult to reverse the trend.

From 2011 to 2016, Intel has been in the leading position in the high-end processor market and is still unrivaled. AMD had to change its strategy and was forced to compete on price, which was exactly the same dilemma AMD faced in the early days. By 2009, AMD began to focus its business on GPUs and did not compete head-on with Intel on CPUs. At the end of June of the same year, AMD officially released the revolutionary product that had been brewing for many years - the A series APU, which was divided into three series: A8, A6 and A4, gradually replacing Athlon II and some Phenom II as AMD's future main force. For the A-series APU, the CPU part is average, but the GPU part performs quite well. 2011: AMD bulldozer CPU, 2012: AMD pile driver CPU, 2014: AMD road roller CPU, 2016: AMD excavator CPU.

AMD's original plan for the APU was very ambitious, and it set a three-step plan. However, the performance and features of the APU were lackluster, and sales have been unsatisfactory.

Cooperate again? ?

Last year there was news that Intel and AMD will have in-depth cooperation this year. AMD will provide Intel with a number of patented technologies on core graphics GPUs to improve the core graphics performance of Intel CPUs. Intel's core graphics will no longer use NVIDIA technology.

Today, foreign media broke the news that the CPU jointly built by Intel and AMD will launch its first product this year. The CPU part is based on Intel's Kaby Lake architecture, and the GPU part uses AMD's Radeon core display. It was also mentioned that the integration of this new CPU is not high. It adopts a separate design of CPU and GPU. It is finally manufactured by Global Foundries or TSMC and handed over to Intel for final assembly. The product is positioned at the mid-range and mainstream level.

The cross-licensing of graphics technology between Intel and AMD began in March 2016. The two parties have reached a new agreement, but no specific information about the new CPU has been announced yet.

The core graphics performance of APU is indeed very powerful. AMD is stronger than Intel and NVIDIA in terms of GPU architecture and driver optimization. This time AMD and Intel cooperate, the new CPU & GPU integration is worth looking forward to, and may be historic. product.

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