AMD Announces 2014 Roadmap

AMD announced a complete roadmap for processor products in 2014, including new initiatives targeted to the enterprise server and HPC sectors. The announcement is a follow-up to recent news of AMD’s new Opteron-X “Kyoto” processor series intended for the small-core server market.

Perhaps the most significant new product is a new 64-bit CPU code-named “Seattle” that is based on the ARM-Cortex instruction set. AMD plans to enter the ARM market in a big way with “Seattle,” which it calls “… the industry’s only 64-bit ARM-based server SoC from a proven server processor supplier.” The “Seattle” unit will come with either 8 or 16 cores and is designed to delivery significantly more “compute-per-watt” than the Opteron X or AMD’s other x86 products.

Also in the pipes for AMD is the “Berlin” x86-based processor, which will appear in both CPU and APU forms. Berlin comes with “four next-generation ‘Steamroller’ cores and will offer almost eight times the gigaFLOPS-per-watt compared to the current AMD Opteron 6386SE processor.” The Berlin unit implements AMD’s Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA), enabling uniform memory access for the CPU and GPU.

The “Warsaw” enterprise-grade CPU will serve as a successor to the Opteron 6300 series. According to the company, Warsaw will be ideal for AMD's Open 3.0 open-compute server platform.