AMD CES 2021 thread.
15 minutes in:
✅ hype video with no substance
✅ video about how AMD is helping solve the trending problem of our day
✅ technology is changing the way we live and work
✅ Interviews about all the above with clients
❌ Technical information
I wonder after a career spent in Intel's shadow, the instinct as soon as success and money comes is to be like Intel. And Intel is trying to be like Apple. Don't do it!!
Be nerdy engineers please, I'll take "boring execution", thank you very much.
CEOs from multiple PC manufacturing companies noting that the pandemic has caused people to rely on computers and the internet. Importantly, they believe that after pandemic is over, people will continue to use computers and the internet. 😂 Sorry, I can't help it.
Ok some slides. Dabbing on Tiger Lake, other slides against Intel's 10th gen, but 11th gen is coming out and that comp we will have to wait for reviewers for. More mobile systems will be available, starting in February, with the 5000 series APUs. Should be great battery life.
Ok, so actually it's the end. The 5000 series APUs were revealed, but not a lot of benchmarks, not a lot on them. Mentioned the 6000 series GPUs that were already out, the mobile versions to start being available in early summer. And a teaser of Milan.
It doesn't pay for AMD to hype their upcoming, or even current products. They can't meet demand, no reason to get people worked up for something they can't get. Plus the relevant comps are against what Intel and NVidia are just now announcing. You're just going to have to wait 😞
Nvidia $NVDA up to bat now
Here's the official AMD specs for the 5000 series mobile procesors
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TSMC $TSM projecting capital expenses of 25-28B USD in 2021. 80% allocated for advanced process tech, 3, 5, 7nm. 10% advanced packaging and mask making, 10% other. 2020 capex, originally slated at $15B, was over $17B. For context $AMD's entire revenue for 2020 estimated at $9.5B
Management sees a growing market and TSMC growing faster than the market, with a 2020-2025 CAGR of 10-15%. In 2019 capex was initially estimated at $10-11B and then revised up to $15B. They are expanding fast, and newer nodes are more capital intensive.
3nm looking good and has strong customer interest, production in 2H 2022.
All this, especially the capex, in line with suggestions Intel will be increasing their use of TSMC fabs, or else AMD making really large increases (or both), but they also project a lot of growth in phones
A break from my regular $AMD coverage. I’ve been looking at $ACEV for a while and I like it, it’s now my 2nd largest holding. It’s a SPAC. If you've heard that but haven't learned about them, overdue to learn. They can be good in this market, with downside protection until merger
$ACEV is taking Achronix public. Achronix is an FPGA company that’s been around for a while. Much smaller than Altera (acquired by Intel) and Xilinx (being acquired by AMD), it is arguably the last independent high performance FPGA company.
The investor presentation is here: achronix.com/sites/default/… I’m not going to rehash it, take a look yourself. But I will go through what I see as the biggest risks, and some big benefits that aren’t clear in the presentation.
$AMD at new all time highs today before CES prez tomorrow. Lots of leaks about Zen 3 based APUs. Last year no one was ready for how good AMD's laptop chips were, not a lot of models to buy. This year AMD won't be able to fab enough chips to meet demand.
Also, new mobile GPUs, Milan server CPUs, desktop APUs, and a new threadripper are due for launches. (Not saying that will happen during CES)
AMD on TSMC N7 has node parity with Intel's best and node advantage over Nvidia. AMD will especially benefit in lower power products.
Worth noting that Intel $INTC is doing it's main CES presentations today. Based on the description and length of their keynote with Gregory Bryant (1PM Pacific time), I would be surprised if they said much about Rocket Lake, their next great hope to compete with AMD. However...
On this last day of 2019, grab a cocoa and let’s do some Fermi approximations to figure out how much of TSMC’s 7nm (N7 node) production AMD is using, as of Q3 2019. See what-if.xkcd.com/84/ for an explanation, and xkcd.com/2205/ for an example.
. Assumptions need to be reasonable, but don’t need to be exact. Let’s assume 7nm chips sold in Q4 were mostly fabbed in Q3. In Q4 AMD revenue is forecast to be $2.2 Billion USD. Let’s gather relevant info about the sources of AMDs revenue.
AMD’s 7nm production so far is limited to a number of GPUs, and the CCDs (core chiplets) of it’s Zen2 based CPU products, including newly released Epyc Rome and Ryzen 3600, 3700, and 39xx series processors. No APUs have any 7nm parts yet.