30 Percent Growth in the Notebook Segment

Tom’s Hardware: In light of the current Phenom line-up, we wonder what’s next. When will AMD transition from 65 nm parts to a 45 nm process?

Polster: The transition from the Barcelona to the Shanghai core produced on a 45 nm process will take place in the second half of this year. I’m sure you already know the code names for the individual segments. We’re demonstrating a system at CeBIT based on a quad-core Phenom, by the way.

Tom’s Hardware: Unlike the competition, AMD equipped its integrated graphics solutions with HD video / H.264 support early on. The 690G chipset already offered hardware acceleration and decoding for HD content from HD-DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. AMD’s new 780G chipset, which we already tested in our article AMD 780G Chipset- Full-HD Playback with a Sempron and found to be quite the impressive product, goes a step further. What’s next?

Polster: That would definitely be the integration of a CPU, chipset and graphics processor in a single chip, a project we call Fusion. However, this is still a few product generations away.

Tom’s Hardware: Let’s take a look at your company’s market share in the individual segments. Where would you say you are the most successful? Where do you see the greatest need for improvement?

Polster: We were able to realize the greatest growth rates in the notebook segment, where we were able to increase our market share from 20 percent in 2006 to 30 percent in 2007. The desktop market, on the other, is stagnating on a high level. And as you know, the share of desktop systems sold is in a continual decline in favour of the other market segments. In the server space, sales were very good as well, although many of our customers are waiting for the B3 stepping of the Opteron. According to an IDC study (IDC 3/2007), we enjoy a market share of 13 percent for 4P servers.

Tom’s Hardware: Most people only associate AMD with processors and chipsets. Many enthusiasts identify with the AMD brand, meaning they have created somewhat of an emotional tie to the products. Where else can we find AMD products where one might not suspect it?

Polster: In addition to the fields you already mentioned you can find our products in flat-screen TVs. We even enjoy a market share of 50 percent in the US. For example, Sony uses our ATI graphics units in most of their products. Of course this is not mentioned in the products’ data sheets. Our chips are also used in Motorola’s cell phones, for instance, as well as in Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox.