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I'd give far more credit to Jim Keller, who returned in 2012 and designed Zen. AMD also benefited from Intel stumbling on 10nm and TSMC leapfrogging them. Zen 2
by ac29 7y ago
I'd give far more credit to Jim Keller, who returned in 2012 and designed Zen. AMD also benefited from Intel stumbling on 10nm and TSMC leapfrogging them. Zen 2 wouldn't be nearly as compelling if it was stuck on Global Foundries 14/12nm process (which is actually licensed from Samsung).
To AMD's credit though, they've executed very well - Jim left in 2015 with more than several Zen generations designed, but there has obviously been significant effort by far more people than just the project lead.
- agumonkey 7y agoAnd to all the people around in the Ati merger and APU era because they wanted to try new things. It didn't work but they were already innovating and they kept going even when struggling.
- Roritharr 7y agoI'd love to get career advice from him. He's famous for all the right reasons! Sadly rare nowadays.
- baybal2 7y agoZen was not designed by Keller. He had his hand on Zen 2, and in a role more of a project manager/team lead than a chief architect
- rrss 7y agoAre you certain? https://www.anandtech.com/show/9643/jim-keller-leaves-amd https://www.anandtech.com/show/9643/jim-keller-leaves-amd and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTFE7sJY-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTFE7sJY-Q (along with everything else I've seen) indicate otherwise.