Water is impermanent and soldiers are irregular. For a long time, Intel, as the world's chip overlord, has been putting AMD under pressure. However, the situation has become increasingly unstable. AMD went all out on dual-core processors, and Intel felt unprecedented pressure.
Intel, once cheated, quickly launched a crusade against the sofa.
Facing the worn-out computer on his desk-this is a Lenovo computer bought five years ago, and the aging motherboard has repeatedly proved that his work is a bit inadequate-Meng, who lives in Qifu Village, Guangzhou, has been a little annoyed recently: he wants to upgrade his computer and better enter the "dual-core" era in one step, but the dispute between the two chip giants on the issue of dual-core "authenticity" makes him not know who to trust. Meng, who had no time to start, had to continue to wait and see. Meng, who is outside the IT circle, doesn't know why Intel and AMD fought, let alone why the two companies fought for it.
At the same time, on February 24th, in a western restaurant on the 3rd floor of CITIC Plaza, IT reporters from mainstream media in South China sat together in twos and threes. They just came to attend the "True and False" dual-core briefing held by Intel Guangzhou Branch. Then on March 8th, Intel announced at its annual technology feast "IDF" that it would launch a quad-core CPU in 2007, and hinted that it might even launch a "hundred-core" CPU in the future. Tough posture.
"Seeing the dragon in the field" AMD rose.
On May 1 1, 2005, this day became the beginning of the dual-core debate between the two chip giants. Previously, AMD had challenged Intel in the markets of the United States and Singapore.
A few days after the May Day holiday, AMD officially released the world's first enterprise-class X86 core computing platform for servers and workstations-AMD dual-core Opteron TM processor, and the scene was quite lively. With the strong support of many domestic and foreign OEMs, such as Dawning, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun, etc., the server and workstation products equipped with AMD dual-core Opteron TM processors are also launched simultaneously. Guo Kezun, AMD's global vice president and president of Greater China, who has always been low-key, took the opportunity of the new product launch conference to say, "I hope the overall share will double that of last year."
"Competition is a good thing, AMD welcomes competition, and competition keeps us vigilant." As a challenger, Wang, the public relations director of AMD China Company, never mentioned Intel, but apparently, they kicked the ball of "competition" to Intel and expected the other party to take it.
This is the first time AMD has put forward the concept of "true dual core" in the world. They claimed that all of the company's dual-core processor products adopt a "true dual-core" architecture, and alleged that Intel's dual-core chip is actually a "dual-core" architecture-simply putting two CPUs together.
On June 7, 2005, Wang once again said: We respect our competitors very much and have no intention of slandering them ... We just want to explain that AMD's architecture is different from Intel's dual-core processor, and AMD's products have more obvious advantages in architecture and stronger performance.
Faced with the naked attack of the opponent, Intel couldn't sit still and launched its first counterattack. At the end of 10 this year, its senior management said at IDF (Intel China Annual Developers Forum) held in Shanghai that AMD was far behind Intel in processor technology, implying that the dual-core technology of the other party was not more advanced than Intel.
In fact, this is a play directed entirely by AMD. They have been forbearing for a long time and seem to have confidence in their dual-core technology. They just hope to lure Intel out by shouting and cursing, and then they will launch a more violent attack. Therefore, Intel's reckless counterattack provided AMD with the best opportunity to exploit loopholes.
On June 5438+early February, 2005, AMD boldly challenged Intel to compare and evaluate the "dual-core processors" of both parties, and claimed that "the test results and competitors' attitude of avoiding the challenge further confirmed AMD's leading edge in multi-core. "Maybe Intel's top management has been alert. For the so-called gauntlet under AMD, Intel was unmoved this time and did not make any response.
If one plan fails, try another. From June 5438 to the first week of February 2005, Ruiz, the global president of AMD, visited China, during which he conspired with senior officials in China to launch another wave of offensive. As soon as Ruiz left, in the middle of June 5438+February, AMD immediately launched a storm activity called "I am a dual-core enthusiast, AMD's true dual-core experience", showing the advantages of dual-core processors in application through the actual experience of users. In this activity, they once again threw out the trump card of "true and false dual-core theory" to build momentum for the upcoming dual-core architecture Athlon64×2 dual-core processor.
After the incident, the industry entered a short period of calm. On the one hand, everyone thought that the war of words between the two companies was over, and on the other hand, they felt sorry for Intel's cowardice. However, Intel is brewing a fierce counterattack.
"Kang Long regrets that" Intel will stop immediately.
An analyst in the semiconductor industry pointed out that although AMD seems to be in the limelight in the promotion of 64-bit technology and dual-core, strictly speaking, this is just a "successful game". As the saying goes, "a thin camel is bigger than a horse." Intel has a strong comprehensive resource advantage and is more comfortable to control the market. Once you wake up and go with the flow, AMD's first-Mover advantage will not last long.
Although Intel tries to keep the "true and false" dual-core explanation mentioned at the beginning of the article low-key, it does not affect the dignified atmosphere of the venue. The situation is too sensitive and severe. Everyone wants to know how the world's chip giants will defend themselves. How to fight back? Who represents the highest end of dual-core chip technology?
The opening remarks were brief, the whole meeting was short and pithy, and three sentences were to the point. Li, general manager of Intel China South China, personally introduced the similarities and differences of dual-core chips of the two companies. He took out the latest evaluation data of the third party, saying that AMD dual-core products have low performance when performing multi-tasks, while products based on Intel dual-core technology are integrated product designs around the characteristics of the whole dual-core technology. This is a brand-new design style, including process, industry and even appearance design, which not only makes the product structure more compact, but also highlights the high performance and low power consumption of dual-core products, especially its low power consumption.
Finally, Hyung-Sang Lee said quietly, for example, if a person wants to read in bed, Intel can reach for it without getting up. AMD should stand up and walk to the bookshelf. "In this process, their error rate is 2.5 times that of ours." After that, Intel technicians demonstrated the performance of dual-core CPU of the two companies by running popular video games at the same time and comparing the speeds.
Intriguingly, Intel rarely does not provide shorthand and photos of the press conference site, and refuses to distribute DEMO to reporters for demonstration. Even the news materials they distributed did not mention the name of "AMD" in one word, but only changed to the title of "a company".
The publicity of Intel Guangzhou Branch was an important part of Intel's counterattack strategy at that time. After that, Intel China held similar events in Shanghai and Beijing to instill its dual-core concept in local IT media.
On February 27th, Ceng Ming, general manager of Intel China North Region, pointed out that his opponent had created a "lie" on the dual-core. "We are all dual-core, and there is no difference between true and false." Ceng Ming said, "AMD's attack on Intel is a fake dual-core, which is totally unreasonable. That's just AMD unilaterally thinking that its dual-core is' true'. " He also quoted Wang Dongsheng, director of the Research Center for Microprocessor and System-on-Chip Technology in Tsinghua University, as saying: "At present, there is no standard or definition for dual cores, and there is no distinction between authenticity and falsehood. There is no reason to say that others are fake. " This is the first time that Intel has expressed its position on AMD's dual-core challenge in the past six months. On March 1 day, Yang Xu, Intel's global vice president and general manager of Asia-Pacific, publicly stated that "AMD dual-core has certain advantages in the single-task test state, such as only transmitting music and doing nothing else. If they are tested in a multi-tasking work environment, their defects will be immediately revealed. "
Then, on March 8, Intel announced at its annual technology feast "IDF" that it would launch a quad-core CPU in 2007, and hinted that it would launch a "hundred-core" CPU in the future, which is Intel's "many-core" plan. Pat Kissinger, Intel's senior vice president and general manager of the Digital Enterprise Division, said that in 2006, more than 70% of Intel's products will be dual-core products, including desktop chips and notebook chips. In the second half of the year, updated processors will be introduced, which will improve the performance of existing processors for notebook computers and personal computers by 40%. "At that time, AMD will be even more backward."
The industry believes that Intel's move can kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, you can create your own "leading" market image in the multi-core CPU market. On the other hand, it also draws public attention away from the dual-core field and makes AMD unprepared.
But just when everyone mistakenly thought that Intel would turn into a full-scale counterattack, it once again hung up the war-free card. In Yang Xu's words, Intel didn't want to fight back, but didn't want to fall into the trap of AMD. At the same time, Liu Jie, the public relations manager of Intel China, told reporters that he would not endlessly respond to other people's statements and would not fall into the trap set by others.
At this point, Intel's only positive counterattack that insisted on not dancing according to the opponent's rhythm came to an end, leaving AMD in the spotlight again.
"Shuanglong water intake" both sides hold their own words.
The focus of controversy between Intel and AMD is "What exactly is' dual-core' chip technology." It is difficult for two schools to become * * * knowledge.
According to the view that the two sides are slightly close, "dual-core technology" is to integrate two (possibly more) computing cores into one processor, thus improving performance. Figuratively speaking, a single core is like a one-way street. At the same time, cars can only pass one by one in turn, while the dual-core is a two-way line, and several cars are flying at the same time.
AMD believes that integrating two cores on a chip is the real dual-core, and the key point of dual-core technology is to optimize the design, so that the two cores can cooperate efficiently and achieve a significant improvement in chip performance. Just like a person has two brains, they use one body, and the two brains can communicate with each other; On this basis, they alleged that Intel's "dual-core" just packaged two originally independent processors in a processor shell, which had no logical relationship, and just wrapped two people in a piece of clothing. Although they have two heads, they do their own things and may even fight with each other.
Intel does not agree with this, pointing out that there is no clear dual-core concept in the industry, so there are only dual-core CPUs with different architectures, and there is no distinction between true and false. "Everyone is dual-core. Why is yours true and mine false? "
Both companies have thrown out third-party evaluation results, performance data and expert opinions. Everyone tries to keep the true identity of their products.
The earliest evaluation was in June 2005. Tomshardware, an internationally renowned hardware website, made a comparative evaluation of the dual-core products provided by the two companies. The final result shows that AMD lost to Intel. At that time, Tang Zhide, senior product manager of AMD, refused to acknowledge this result. He believes that the reason is that Intel has optimized the products submitted for inspection.
Recently, AMD quoted the comparative test data of CNET International, a third-party evaluation agency, claiming to be superior to Intel in seven aspects, such as daily computing, games, multitasking, picture editing and MP3 coding. "We won 7:0!" According to the news materials published by AMD and the evaluation data of many media and third-party professional evaluation institutions, AMD dual-core processors are superior to Intel dual-core processors in performance, whether dealing with single tasks or multi-tasks.
Wang Honghua, the public relations manager of Intel China Company, immediately questioned the standard of this test: "We just want to ask, who can stipulate the authenticity of dual-core products? At present, no institution can make a judgment. " Wang Honghua's view is exactly the same as that of Ceng Ming, and it has also been supported by some domestic scholars.
Professor Wang Dongsheng of Tsinghua University pointed out that there is no * * same standard or definition for the architecture of dual-core processors in the industry at present, so there is naturally no distinction between true and false. "The original intention of multi-core is to integrate multiple processor cores on one processor. At this point, AMD and Intel are' no different'. We can't say that our products are' true dual-core' because we integrate arbitration and other functions, and there is no reason to call other people's products' dual-core' or' pseudo-dual-core'. " Wang Dongsheng said.
If Wang's view is regarded as a kind of support for Intel, then Zhang Yunquan's view can be regarded as support for AMD. On March 23rd, Deputy Director of the Parallel Computing Laboratory of Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences and member of the Technical Committee of National 863 High Performance Computer Evaluation Center publicly stated that the bottleneck problem of the front-end bus would appear in Intel's dual-core architecture.
Zhang Yunquan believes that in the architecture of multi-core processors, the most critical thing is the cooperation between cores. AMD's dual-core uses high-speed crossbar for cooperation and communication, which is the key to its design. The advantage is that the two cores cooperate well. In contrast, Intel architecture will have the bottleneck problem of the front-end bus.
Wang Dongsheng's and Zhang Yunquan's views basically represent the two camps in China's academic circles, and these two views are also at odds with the dispute between Intel and AMD.
Behind the dual-core debate of "dragon wagging tail"
Through the smoke everywhere, we can see that the two sides are fighting for the authenticity of the dual-core, but it is actually a natural "collision" when the market structure changes. The dispute between "true and false dual core" is not "birthright", but market share, which is the dominant position leading the industrial development trend.
Nowadays, technologies such as single-core and hyper-threading are becoming obsolete. AMD, once unable to compete with Intel, is now facing brand-new market opportunities and has mature technologies and products, so it is natural to give it a try. Data and analysis from relevant institutions reflect the fierce competition between the two sides from another level. On March 1 day, JPMorgan Chase Semiconductor analyst Danely downgraded Intel's stock rating index. In addition to Intel's quarterly results not meeting expectations, Danely said that AMD's market share is rising. According to the statistics of market research company MercuryResearch, AMD's combined market share in the server, desktop and notebook computer market has risen to 265,438+0.4% in the fourth quarter of last year, significantly higher than the previous quarter's 65,438+07.7%.
A classic example is that in June 2002, 5438+065438+ 10, Guo Kezun (now AMD's global vice president) took office for the first time. AMD is still useless in the China brand computer market. In order to win the battle of "virgin" in China market, she spared no effort to travel thousands of miles to make her debut with the new product of Jiangxi local computer brand "Chen Chuang".
However, Intel chips have directly promoted and led the rapid development of personal computers in the past decade. From "286" to "586", from "Pentium" to "Centrino", the name of each product has become a standard that can replace the product performance description. However, AMD's sudden emergence in the past two or three years has won the support of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and other manufacturers, and gradually disintegrated Intel's tightly gathered "iron bucket camp"; Marked by the lawsuit against Intel monopoly last year, AMD began to take active actions with its rivals in the market. But compared with Intel, AMD is a latecomer after all. Guo Kezun met with a "soft nail" in public relations with Tongfang, and Tongfang also showed its loyalty to the Intel camp to the outside world this year. Tongfang attributed the reason for rejecting AMD to "we are considering whether AMD has enough resources to provide long-term support for Tongfang".
While mocking Tongfang's loyalty, Intel reciprocated. In marketing, Intel gave Tongfang a lot of financial support, and in 2004 increased investment in research and development, products, marketing, sales and training. The communication between the two sides is more enthusiastic, and the relationship is warming up day by day, even surpassing Lenovo, Intel's largest partner in China.
Intel's shrewdness and power are precisely reflected in its handy manipulation of various manufacturers. For more than ten years, Intel has mastered the production and product lifeline of these OEMs without core technology by controlling the product quantity, launch time and price of each manufacturer. Among them, a monopoly system based on Lenovo, Founder, Tongfang and TCL has been established in China. An average of up to 50% of Intel's advertising rebate is directly transferred to the PC manufacturer's account in cash, which is the killer of Intel with deep pockets.
At the same time, Intel has not forgotten to attract compatible computer manufacturers to expand the number of "Intel system" businesses. In Chengdu, through product support and reimbursement of nearly 70% to 80% of advertising expenses, Intel has also brought four compatible computer manufacturers, namely Bada, Daoyang, Hecheng and Yejia, into this system.
All this has caught AMD off guard. According to industry analysis, worldwide, Intel still occupies more than 70% of the market share and owns more than 90% of computer manufacturers, which cannot be shaken in the short term.
However, Intel's dominance in the past has been broken. Not only in the DIY field that AMD is good at, but also in the brand machine market, AMD has made unremitting efforts and gained a lot.
Intel strikes back at AMD.
Intel AMD's resentment and dissatisfaction.
1968, BobNoyce and GordonMoore founded Intel Corporation.
1969, JerrySanders and a group of former Fairchild employees founded AMD.
In the early 1980s, IBM chose Intel's x86 chip and Microsoft's DOS system. In order to avoid over-reliance on Intel, IBM asked Intel to help find another supplier.
1982, Intel signed a technology exchange agreement with AMD, making AMD the second supplier of IBM. According to the agreement, AMD has the right to use Intel's "286" chip technology.
1984, Intel abandoned AMD and provided "386" chips separately. 1987, AMD filed a lawsuit against Intel in an attempt to resolve the "386" dispute.
199 1, AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel, claiming that Intel protected and maintained its monopoly position through illegal acts. This is the first time AMD has identified Intel as suspected of monopoly, and has kept this view to this day.
1992, the court asked Intel to compensate AMD100000 USD. Moreover, for the Intel patents used by AMD's 386 processor, AMD can be exempted from paying patent fees.
1995, all major legal disputes between AMD and Intel have been resolved.
In 2000, AMD filed a lawsuit against the EU, claiming that Intel's actions violated the EU's anti-competition law.
In 2004, the Japan Fair Trade Commission investigated Intel's alleged monopoly.
In 2005, AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the Delaware District Court.
On June 25th, 2005, AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the Federal District Court of Delaware according to the relevant provisions of American law. AMD submitted a 48-page complaint to the court, detailing the "evil deeds" of "Intel illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the X86 microprocessor market and asking customers not to trade with AMD".