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I don't mean to diminish the efforts of anyone involved, but I truly feel one man more or less moves the direction of the CPU industry: Jim Keller. He, among o

by axaxs 9y ago

I don't mean to diminish the efforts of anyone involved, but I truly feel one man more or less moves the direction of the CPU industry: Jim Keller. He, among others, invented x86_64 at AMD during its previous glory days. AMD dominated the competition. He led the Apple chips at A4, and Apple chips then and now dominate the mobile competition. He came back to AMD and helped create Zen, to obvious results. Apparently he now works for Tesla. In any event, this guy seems to have the Midas touch wrt CPUs, it's a shame there isn't more written about him or more importantly, by him.

thehobgoblin 9y ago
I remember how excited I was when I heard the announcement that Keller was to work on a new project at AMD a few years back. And I can certainly relate to the latter point: As an electronic engineer that likes to dabble with IC design, I'd love to consume some of the wisdom that the man could impart.
posguy 9y ago
The timeline looks about right, SA says he moved back to AMD in 2012[1], so figure 4 years to design a new core and get a few test runs in, then a year to ramp enough so you can sell said chip. That being said, I think it has more to do with an overall culture change, the technical talent to build a good core has been at AMD this whole time. Jim Keller said as much back in 2014[2], and there is nothing special about Zen's architecture from a technical standpoint. What Zen is is a well executed conventional high performance CPU core. By not splitting up resources like previous leadership at AMD, they were able to build a solid, competitive core. This type of investment takes 5+ years to come to fruition, from thought to test runs of silicon. 1 - https://semiaccurate.com/2012/08/01/apples-cpu-architect-jim-keller-moves-back-to-amd/ https://semiaccurate.com/2012/08/01/apples-cpu-architect-jim... 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTFE7sJY-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTFE7sJY-Q
- axaxs 9y ago
  Well...I don't know the entire history, but only my memory...which admittedly is never an accurate source. At that time, it was stated Jim Keller was brought back to AMD specifically to work on something which became codenamed 'Zen', since AMD was getting pounded in their previous ventures(Bulldozer et al). I was excited then, then forgot, and then Ryzen was born.
  - posguy 9y ago
    Yea, he definitely came in at an interesting time, right as Lisa Su came to the fore, locking down the PS4 and Xbox One. Following this Lisa pared back the product lines so they weren't spreading their engineering talent thin, which AMD badly needed to do. Remember that ARM Seattle core AMD announced in 2012[1], to be launched in 2014? Here we are in 2017, and its finally just becoming available in significant quantities... Diversions like that were what was keeping AMD from putting enough engineers on the task of building a solid CPU core. 1 - https://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/30/amd-announces-an-arm64-server-soc-for-seamicro/ https://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/30/amd-announces-an-arm64-s...
aidenn0 9y ago
Along with him was Dobberpuhl, who led the DEC Alpha team that Keller was on. Dobberpuhl founded SiByte, which is the company that Keller left AMD for. They then went on together to work at P.A. Semi, which was acquired by Apple. Dobberpuhl retired there. Keller went to AMD, and now is at Tesla.
slackingoff2017 9y ago
Truly brilliant for sure. Reminds me of Anders Hejlsberg who designed Typescript, Delphi, and C#. Or Linus Torvalds with Linux, and just to prove he wasn't a one hit wonder designing Git. I've concluded that what people fail to grasp about technology is that Einstein types still exist. There are rare engineers worth hundreds of times more than average, only this time they're well paid by their corporate masters. More like Picasso's really. Technology is a fusion of art and science, free from the normal restrictions of physics it's an engineering discipline that embraces art and elegance to a degree not seen in harder, realer disciplines.
- ijidak 9y ago
  Throw in Jobs. Original Mac (1984), iPod (iconic music players), iPhone (nuf said), iPad (launch of tablets). Musk, Edison, Bell. Really a lot of the world changing in tech is concentrated in bursts of productivity for a relative few individuals like Einstein's golden year. Of course many make significant one off contributions. But it is amazing how some just have this ability to strike gold consistently. Making it look almost routine.
  - syshum 9y ago
    Jobs was a Marketer of other peoples ideas... I love how you leave out Woz, and the Team of people that made the iPod/iPhone/iPad Edison is renowned for taking credit for other peoples work, notably some of the work of Nikola Tesla who you also leave off your list and was one of the rare singular geniuses on the level of a Einstein Elon Musk has a vision of his idealized world and the money to hire people that will attempt to make it happen None of the people you list (aside from Einstein) are singular genius working on their own creating the ideas and products and I think we do a disservice to everyone when we say "Jobs invented the iPhone". That is not to say their contributions to the projects are not important but I do believe there is some amount of Hero Worship and over inflation of their value/importance and an massive under appreciation for the 100's or 1000's of other people that actually make these ideas or products a reality
    - AlphaSite 9y ago
PyComfy 9y ago
He sure seems to be very talented but Ryzen also gained from a few important patents being finally expired (the one about SMT, for example) https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-cluster-based-multithreading/ https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-clu... http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-review-a-deep-dive-on-1800x-1700x-and-1700/10 http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-...
geezerjay 9y ago
> one man more or less moves the direction of the CPU industry: Jim Keller. I never heard of him, and now I'm glad I did. Thank you for posting that. Here's a link to wikipedia's article on Jim Keller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer)

by axaxs 9y ago

thehobgoblin 9y ago

I remember how excited I was when I heard the announcement that Keller was to work on a new project at AMD a few years back. And I can certainly relate to the latter point: As an electronic engineer that likes to dabble with IC design, I'd love to consume some of the wisdom that the man could impart.

posguy 9y ago

The timeline looks about right, SA says he moved back to AMD in 2012[1], so figure 4 years to design a new core and get a few test runs in, then a year to ramp enough so you can sell said chip. That being said, I think it has more to do with an overall culture change, the technical talent to build a good core has been at AMD this whole time. Jim Keller said as much back in 2014[2], and there is nothing special about Zen's architecture from a technical standpoint. What Zen is is a well executed conventional high performance CPU core. By not splitting up resources like previous leadership at AMD, they were able to build a solid, competitive core. This type of investment takes 5+ years to come to fruition, from thought to test runs of silicon. 1 - https://semiaccurate.com/2012/08/01/apples-cpu-architect-jim-keller-moves-back-to-amd/ https://semiaccurate.com/2012/08/01/apples-cpu-architect-jim... 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTFE7sJY-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTFE7sJY-Q

axaxs 9y ago
Well...I don't know the entire history, but only my memory...which admittedly is never an accurate source. At that time, it was stated Jim Keller was brought back to AMD specifically to work on something which became codenamed 'Zen', since AMD was getting pounded in their previous ventures(Bulldozer et al). I was excited then, then forgot, and then Ryzen was born.
- posguy 9y ago
  Yea, he definitely came in at an interesting time, right as Lisa Su came to the fore, locking down the PS4 and Xbox One. Following this Lisa pared back the product lines so they weren't spreading their engineering talent thin, which AMD badly needed to do. Remember that ARM Seattle core AMD announced in 2012[1], to be launched in 2014? Here we are in 2017, and its finally just becoming available in significant quantities... Diversions like that were what was keeping AMD from putting enough engineers on the task of building a solid CPU core. 1 - https://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/30/amd-announces-an-arm64-server-soc-for-seamicro/ https://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/30/amd-announces-an-arm64-s...

aidenn0 9y ago

Along with him was Dobberpuhl, who led the DEC Alpha team that Keller was on. Dobberpuhl founded SiByte, which is the company that Keller left AMD for. They then went on together to work at P.A. Semi, which was acquired by Apple. Dobberpuhl retired there. Keller went to AMD, and now is at Tesla.

slackingoff2017 9y ago

Truly brilliant for sure. Reminds me of Anders Hejlsberg who designed Typescript, Delphi, and C#. Or Linus Torvalds with Linux, and just to prove he wasn't a one hit wonder designing Git. I've concluded that what people fail to grasp about technology is that Einstein types still exist. There are rare engineers worth hundreds of times more than average, only this time they're well paid by their corporate masters. More like Picasso's really. Technology is a fusion of art and science, free from the normal restrictions of physics it's an engineering discipline that embraces art and elegance to a degree not seen in harder, realer disciplines.

ijidak 9y ago
Throw in Jobs. Original Mac (1984), iPod (iconic music players), iPhone (nuf said), iPad (launch of tablets). Musk, Edison, Bell. Really a lot of the world changing in tech is concentrated in bursts of productivity for a relative few individuals like Einstein's golden year. Of course many make significant one off contributions. But it is amazing how some just have this ability to strike gold consistently. Making it look almost routine.
- syshum 9y ago
  Jobs was a Marketer of other peoples ideas... I love how you leave out Woz, and the Team of people that made the iPod/iPhone/iPad Edison is renowned for taking credit for other peoples work, notably some of the work of Nikola Tesla who you also leave off your list and was one of the rare singular geniuses on the level of a Einstein Elon Musk has a vision of his idealized world and the money to hire people that will attempt to make it happen None of the people you list (aside from Einstein) are singular genius working on their own creating the ideas and products and I think we do a disservice to everyone when we say "Jobs invented the iPhone". That is not to say their contributions to the projects are not important but I do believe there is some amount of Hero Worship and over inflation of their value/importance and an massive under appreciation for the 100's or 1000's of other people that actually make these ideas or products a reality
  - AlphaSite 9y ago

PyComfy 9y ago

He sure seems to be very talented but Ryzen also gained from a few important patents being finally expired (the one about SMT, for example) https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-cluster-based-multithreading/ https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-clu... http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-review-a-deep-dive-on-1800x-1700x-and-1700/10 http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-...

geezerjay 9y ago

> one man more or less moves the direction of the CPU industry: Jim Keller. I never heard of him, and now I'm glad I did. Thank you for posting that. Here's a link to wikipedia's article on Jim Keller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer)