Ian Interviews #11: Mike Clark, AMD Zen Chief Architect

[LtMatt]

Written version: AnandTech Interviews Mike Clark, AMD’s Chief Architect of Zen

 

[Dave2150]

I fear for Zen's future, now that AMD's future architectures have not had the attention of Jim Keller. Hope I'm wrong and that the Zen 3 refresh (2022?) and Zen4 (Q4 2022/Q1 2023?) are as large performance increases as what Zen3 was.

 

[Zarax]

I fear for Zen's future, now that AMD's future architectures have not had the attention of Jim Keller. Hope I'm wrong and that the Zen 3 refresh (2022?) and Zen4 (Q4 2022/Q1 2023?) are as large performance increases as what Zen3 was.

CPU design is a group effort. As much as Keller is a genius, he did not design Zen alone...

 

[jigger]

I fear for Zen's future, now that AMD's future architectures have not had the attention of Jim Keller. Hope I'm wrong and that the Zen 3 refresh (2022?) and Zen4 (Q4 2022/Q1 2023?) are as large performance increases as what Zen3 was.

Why? I thought your Intel chip was super amazballz.

 

[humbug]

I fear for Zen's future, now that AMD's future architectures have not had the attention of Jim Keller. Hope I'm wrong and that the Zen 3 refresh (2022?) and Zen4 (Q4 2022/Q1 2023?) are as large performance increases as what Zen3 was.

Mike Clark has been with AMD since 1993, he is an actual CPU architect, Jim Killer is a personnel manager, a very good one, but that's his job, not designing CPU's and Dr Lisa Sue is just as capable of managing people as Jim Keller.

 

[LtMatt]

Mike Clark has been with AMD since 1993, he is an actual CPU architect, Jim Killer is a personnel manager, a very good one, but that's his job, not designing CPU's and Dr Lisa Sue is just as capable of managing people as Jim Keller.

Very well put.

 

[Poneros]

Excellent interview and a lot of good answers detailing AMD's CPU journey. Usually these things are just fluff.

 

[smilingcrow]

He sounds so excited about Zen 5.
A bit of a tease considering Zen 4 is still a long way out.
This based on the article at Anandtech which I presume is a transcript!

 

[jigger]

He sounds so excited about Zen 5.
A bit of a tease considering Zen 4 is still a long way out.
This based on the article at Anandtech which I presume is a transcript!

Zen 4 isn’t that far off.

 

[jigger]

The chap seems nothing like you would expect. I would have expected him to be some ancient professor type.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

The chap seems nothing like you would expect. I would have expected him to be some ancient professor type.

Probably why he is so damn successful! He made huge

Mike Clark has been with AMD since 1993, he is an actual CPU architect, Jim Killer is a personnel manager, a very good one, but that's his job, not designing CPU's and Dr Lisa Sue is just as capable of managing people as Jim Keller.

I largely agree, but Jim is a bit of an oddball in that he can work from the top of the business stack to the bottom of the technical stack. He was effectively a facilitator in AMD, and had lots of his own technical ideas and approaches that he'd push.

But in his own words, he was "bulldozing" barriers that other people wouldnt or couldn't and it enabled Mike Clarke to get his Zen design done. He also setup, enabled and motivated teams of people to go for something really big and aspirational.

That's a big deal, but he didn't write any RTL. He says himself he's an uncle of Zen and it involves thousands of "hero" engineers that never get any recognition. Mike Clarke is the "father" of zen.